Cycles 2: Aestas
by ulstergirl
Summary: Nancy and Ned are presented with great opportunities, at the cost of their relationship. Adult content. Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**This story is set a few months after the close of Cycles 1: Autumnus. If you have not read that story, you will be lost, so please read it first.**

**Lady Douglas, Nancy's maternal grandmother, is from Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes. The gesture Nancy and Ned repeat, from the end of Autumnus, is from Files #90, Stage Fright. Flanders' farm is from Files #22, Fatal Attraction, as is Fox Lake.  
**

**This story is approximately a strong PG-13 (edited down), but I do caution the reader that it includes nonexplicit consensual heterosexual sex between adults, strong adult themes, alcohol use, and some coarse language. This story is a little bit darker than the first story, obviously. If the above scares you, turn back now. And, as with Mail Order Bride, the explicit version is available on another website; this is merely the version with the more potentially offensive content excised.**

**I know next to nothing about professional sports, so I may have set up a scenario which is, if not at least possible, may not be probable. If so, I apologize. Just consider it a slight alternate-universe.**

**Aestas is Latin for summer. (Yes, I'm going backwards.) **

* * *

One last paper, and Nancy would be halfway done with college. 

The keys to her prison lay silent, where they had fallen after being fed through her printer; nine double-spaced and carefully considered sheets of babble she had finally tired of at precisely 1:53 that morning. The countless revisions, tweakings of adjective and metaphor, and last minute half remembered quotes had ended in a dreamless but slightly anxious sleep.

Later that day Ned would be back in Mapleton, and she in River Heights.

The day was already bright with dry heat when she pulled back the blinds. A leisurely shower, one last load of possessions out to the Mustang, a careful once-over and she turned in her key. Sleepy-eyed students roamed the halls as Nancy found her professor's door closed and quiet, a manila folder pinned to the door already bulging with papers. She added hers and felt a glorious weight lift from her chest.

She put the top down and raked back her hair. Mint green tank top, stonewashed cutoffs, and three months of freedom with the guy she loved. The drive stretched out before her and she felt no sense of impatience. The interstate was crowded with cars; George and Bess would be joining them later.

The only thing she wondered was whether Hannah would let them house-sit soon.

The stereo was so loud that she almost didn't even hear her cell phone ring. She steered with her knees as she simultaneously turned down the music and answered the call.

"Miss Drew?"

--

The waiting list for the program was so long that she had never actually expected to get in. She had applied back at the beginning of the school year for a semester in the most prestigious journalism exchange program for undergraduates that the nation had to offer, and was hoping for a plum spot in Washington, maybe, not too far away, and she could hang out with Teresa while she was there. She hadn't called in a single favor or tried to sway her appointment in any way. And, after she had not heard from them, she had put the possibility out of her mind. Besides, Ned would be much closer if she stayed at Wilder.

The bubbly, slightly accented voice on the other end of the phone informed her that she had been accepted. But not to Washington; not to University of Chicago, not to Columbia. To a university in Madrid.

Ahh, yes. She had put proficiency in conversational Spanish on her application.

"The entire semester?" she asked, excited and frightened at the same time.

Yes, the entire semester. The program would arrange her deferred return to Wilder in January; she could choose to live in a house with the other participants or the program would cover her living on-campus. Passport—

"My passport's up to date, there shouldn't be a problem with that."

Vaccinations, an orientation course next month, a small matter of some paperwork that needed to be filled out. To her home address, yes?

Nancy ended the call just as she turned onto her street. On autopilot she pulled into the garage, noticed mechanically that her father's car was not home but Iris's was. She left the top down, closed the door, and walked through their backyard to the makeshift doorway in the fence between.

--

"You nearly scared me to death."

Nancy was sitting on the back patio, her cell phone off and silent on the table next to her. A sweating glass of iced water stood near it. Her long, tanned legs were crossed and propped up on another chair, and her sunglasses were pushed back onto her hair. She started and then glanced over her shoulder, shooting an apologetic smile at Hannah.

"I'm sorry. I thought you knew I was coming back today."

"Yeah, but I didn't know you would sneak in while I was grocery shopping. Give me a hand?"

Nancy picked up her water glass but left her cell phone on the table as she followed Hannah back into the air conditioned comfort of the house, through the sliding glass doors. "I needed somewhere to think, and Iris is home."

"What's on your mind?"

Nancy didn't answer at once, as she started unloading the bags. "All my favorite things," she said, smiling as she looked through Hannah's purchases.

"Of course." Hannah folded a paper bag, smoothed its wrinkles, and put it away. "Is it something about Ned?"

"Only indirectly." Nancy sighed and put away a gallon of ice cream. "The journalism program I applied to forever ago called me today. And next semester…"

--

"…they want me to go to training camp," Ned said. "A little bit this summer, after they sign me. They've shown me the contract."

Miles away from where Hannah was discussing the offer with Nancy, on the first real day of summer, Ned was sitting in his kitchen with his parents. Edith leaned forward.

"Are they talking about you leaving school?"

"For a while, but not permanently," he said. "From what I understand I'd be signed for a year, with the option to extend the contract based on my performance. The rep says that's normal, given that I'm still in college."

James nodded. "Do you have a copy of it?"

Ned dug in his backpack for a moment, then produced it. "I'm going over to see Nancy tonight, I thought maybe I'd show it to Mr. Drew and see what he thought of it."

Edith glanced at it, then back at her son. "Are you actually thinking about doing this?"

Ned was watching his father's face, and when James reached a particular paragraph, his eyebrows shot up. "He'd be a fool not to," James replied. "With what they're offering, he and Nancy could be set for life."

Edith looked back and forth between her husband and son, disquiet in her eyes. "So what, are you saying you could just do this for a year, trade a year of your life for…"

James folded back the contract to show her the number. "That much."

Edith leaned back in her chair.

--

The sun was sinking below the horizon. Nancy heard the roar of the Camaro before she actually saw Bess, her cousin George in the passenger seat of the bright yellow car, pull into the parking lot. Bess let out a yell as she climbed out. "Glorious glorious summer!" she said, reaching out to give Nancy a hug.

"Glorious guys, more like it," George said, slamming her door. "That's all you could talk about on the way here."

Bess might not even have heard the jibe. She stared at Nancy. "You look white as a sheet," Bess said. "Did a go-kart go off the track or something?"

Nancy forced a smile onto her face. "No, nothing like that," she said. "I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet that we're actually free for a little while. Ned's inside," she said, but didn't move toward the door.

"Did you two have a fight?"

Her answering laugh rang equally false. "No, no," she said.

The air conditioning washed over them, the games mobbed by prepubescents under the flashing lights. Ned looked as troubled and preoccupied as Nancy, but when they greeted each other it was with no mention.

"I've bought us tickets," he said, extending a handful of sturdy cardboard. The girls each took one, then headed out to stand in line at the go-kart track.

Bess wrinkled her nose at the smell of it, after George had shot her a glance warning against any more prying. "It's so loud," she said, as a string of roaring vehicles passed. "What should we do after this?" she called over the noise.

Nancy and Ned each started guiltily out of whatever they were thinking. They exchanged glances. "There's laser tag inside," Ned said with a shrug.

"Haven't played that in a while, it could be fun," George said.

"Only because you kill me off immediately," Bess protested.

"We can decide after," Nancy said as the line started moving.

--

"Well, he's gotten his pro offer," Carson said as he climbed into bed that night.

Iris patted her face dry, then slipped out of her bathrobe and under the sheet. "What did you think of the contract? What are you going to tell him tomorrow?"

Carson chuckled. "The contract is well written and straightforward. And I'll tell him that. If he wants to do this, there are no loopholes, other than the obvious ones." He sighed. "But I know he hasn't told Nan yet."

--

Flanders farm by firefly. Nancy couldn't drag her gaze from anything, once it settled there, and the field was no exception. The blackened remains of the barn stood as a silent testament to Brenda Carlton's shortsightedness. Ned had parked a discreet distance from the other couple, and the rustling of the crickets was occasionally joined by the squeal of the other car's suspension.

Nancy wanted to go home and draw herself a bath and sit staring at something else, something helpful, until her mind would stop whirling with possibilities and recriminations.

Five months an ocean apart from him.

"You look like you're a million miles away," Ned said gently, and Nancy turned to look at him. He was dressed casually, one arm draped across the door, the breeze ruffling their hair.

She smiled at him apologetically. "Yeah," she agreed.

"It's the first day of summer, Nan." He opened his arms to the stars above them. "We're at Flanders farm. No cases in sight."

"You're right."

She clambered over the front seats and into the back, then patted the seat next to her, and he joined her. The other car's doors opened, and the couple inside climbed out and sprawled on the hood of the car, staring up into the pinpricked darkness.

Ned tucked a strand of her hair back. "You all right?"

She half-smiled and shook her head. "Not really. You?"

He shrugged. "I don't know yet," he said.

"Want to talk about it?"

He shook his head.

"Me either," she admitted, stretching her arms and leaning back in the seat. "For right now I just want to look at you."

"Just keep your eyes open," he advised, leaning over to kiss her.

--

Nancy called her father the next morning, after Iris had left the house in a flutter of satin for a shopping trip and lunch with her son. Hannah was out again, doing God-knew-what, now that her life did not revolve around the perfect soufflé for the Drews' dinner, and Ned had begged off any engagements until that evening.

"I'm sure you wouldn't be interested in eating lunch with your only child," Nancy said, a small smile coloring her voice, her legs curled beneath her on the couch.

Carson laughed. "You cooking?"

Nancy looked down at her bathrobe, still tied about her waist, and then glanced at the gleaming kitchen. The most strenuous thing she had watched Iris make in there was a smoothie. But Hannah wasn't there, Hannah wouldn't be home, and dread rose up in Nancy at the thought of making a list, going to the grocery store, ferreting out pots and pans and worse yet, lids…

"Let's go out."

"Well…" Nancy heard him shuffle a few papers. "I can do that. I have an appointment at 11:30 but I don't expect it to take too long. We'll take off at 12?"

"All right, I'll drop by the office for you."

His pause was nearly imperceptible. "That's fine. See you then."

Nancy hung up the phone thoughtfully. After her shower she brought in the last few things from her car, put her schoolnotes into the tomb of indefinite storage, and changed into a light yellow t-shirt with stonewashed jeans.

Her line rang, and she checked the caller ID. "Didn't expect you to be awake at this hour," she answered the phone.

"Haven't you seen how beautiful it is today?" Bess replied. "Marcy Evans is having a party tonight, and I wanted to get some last-minute tanning in. You coming?"

"Tanning or party?" Nancy asked, laughing.

"Both. Either. George is filling in as a lifeguard this afternoon at the pool, and I was going to meet her down there after lunch. Hopefully the pool won't be crammed with too many middle schoolers."

"They're not out yet," Nancy answered absently. "That's fine. I'll call you after lunch."

After she hung up with Bess she tried Ned's cell, but his voicemail picked up. She left him a message about the party and climbed into her Mustang, the top still down, the breeze refreshing under the unrelenting noon sun.

Carson Drew's office was in downtown River Heights, and Nancy knew the way there like the back of her hand. On the way there she wondered what he would say when she told him.

What shocked her was her feeling that the decision had already been made. Hannah had listened to Nancy's description of the program, how good it would be for her, the experience she would gain, the appeal to future employers; and her fear that spending a semester overseas would test her relationship with Ned in ways that she wasn't sure it could handle.

"I've never spent that much time away from him," she had told Hannah, and it was true; during their relationship, while they had been together, the most time she could remember was a six week stretch bookended by school breaks and filled with term papers. Not counting the summers, the summers in the Hamptons and touring Europe with Bess and George. During which she had met Sasha and Mick, respectively.

But during those times she had not owned the glowing talisman of the Nickerson heirloom engagement ring.

How would she do this? How would she leave him, after the time they had spent apart, after all their bemoaning the space between them, stretch it to its breaking point, go five months with nothing but his tenuous voice over transatlantic phone lines and emails, assuming the place even had internet access.

She pulled behind the building, beside her father's car, and parked, then removed her keys from the ignition and leaned against the steering wheel. Oh God. His face when she told him. The expression he had worn a thousand times, upon hearing that she suddenly inexplicably desperately needed to help someone, instead of going with him to his parents' cabin or spending a nice camping trip with him or going out to dinner with him or…

She sipped in a breath and stepped out of the car, put the top up, locked it securely. Her toenails gleamed, a swirling shade of pink just north of bubblegum, as she waited for the elevator in the lobby. Her father's secretary smiled at her as she entered.

"He'll be out in just a second, Nancy."

"Thanks." Nancy sat down, crossed her legs, and hoped he would keep an eye on the time. The hum of voices carried just slightly through the door, both masculine. She glanced at her watch, then thought about calling Ned again in the few minutes she had left.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Drew."

Nancy's head didn't move but her eyes widened by degrees, and she almost didn't trust herself to turn her head. _It's a free country_, she thought, but that didn't abate the sudden anger she felt rising in her chest.

Ned stopped, so still, one foot out of Carson's office. Then he smiled, seemingly oblivious to the flush rising in Nancy's cheeks.

"Fancy meeting you here," he said, stepping forward. Her eyes caught the movement as his hand folded the sheaf of papers he was carrying away from her gaze. "I'd love to take you out to lunch, but…"

"Too late," Carson said, closing his office door behind the two of them. "We'll see you for dinner sometime this week?"

"Sure, sure," Ned said easily. "I'll see you later, Nan, okay?"

She didn't trust herself to speak, only dipped her head in silent acknowledgement before he left. Carson's incidental conversation with his secretary was lost in the rush of blood through her eardrums.

"…Nan?"

Her head jerked up. "What?"

"Where to for lunch?"

With an effort she kept silent until they were out of his secretary's earshot. When they climbed into his car, she turned to him, feeling like it took all the strength she had to keep her molecules from flying apart with rage.

"Was that a prenup?"

The words exploded from her lips, over the oldies station humming softly from the radio. Carson backed carefully out of his parking space and put the car in drive.

"You know I can't discuss a client with you."

"Then it was about me."

"Do you want a prenup? It would be pretty easy to draw one up."

Nancy shook her head and brought a hand up to her mouth, her teeth closing compulsively over her thumbnail. "I'm your client," she said. "You can't take his case if it would interfere with my interests. It has to be something about me but not detrimental to me…"

The car eased to a stop at a red light, and Carson turned to his daughter. "It's not for me to tell you. And, Nan, it might be nothing. I'm sorry."

He drove to her favorite restaurant, and she had to smile. After the waiter arrived with their drinks, she explained the offer she had received, the chance to study abroad for a semester.

"What do you think I should do?" she asked.

Carson took a sip of his water. "It sounds like a wonderful trip," he said. "Maybe Iris and I can find an excuse to come over and visit while you're there."

Nancy tilted her head. "It's four, almost five months," she said.

"Have you and Ned talked about it?"

"No," she admitted. "I've told you and Hannah. Haven't even told Bess and George yet."

Carson shrugged. "If it turns out that this semester makes you have to attend Wilder for another half a year, that's fine. I have no problem with that."

Nancy shook her head. "That's not it. I have enough credit-hours accumulated that I'll graduate on time."

Carson smiled broadly. "I won't know what to do on the weekends, without you sweeping into the house like a whirlwind, eating every snack food we have in the house, and vanishing at the bare mention of a party."

"Oh, it hasn't been like that."

"Maybe the three of us can go do something over Christmas."

Nancy nodded. "Maybe."

--

Ned texted her a reply when she was on her way to the pool, and she read it apprehensively. He would be at the party. She put her phone back in her purse and pressed down the gas pedal.

Bess was at the snack bar when Nancy stepped out of the changing room. George waved, then blew her whistle at a sandy-haired boy. "Hey! No horseplay!"

"Please, Nan, go with me to the mall after this," Bess begged. "I think George might go in what she has on."

Nancy took in George's black one-piece and raised an eyebrow. "Is this a pool party?"

"No, but she doesn't seem to care," Bess said, taking Nancy's arm and leading her to a lounge chair. She swept off her spare towel and sunscreen so Nancy could take a seat. "Have you had lunch? I've had a salad and I'm famished."

Nancy smiled. "Maybe we could stop by the food court."

"Thank God." Bess slipped her sunglasses back on and stretched out her legs. Nancy did the same and noticed Bess's jealous glance at her.

"Bess…"

"Hmm?"

"Remember that program I applied to?"

George switched with another lifeguard for a break right in the middle of Nancy's explanation, so she told it hastily again, then looked back and forth between the cousins. Bess's long, straw-blond hair was raked back, and she was wearing a green polka-dotted bikini, while her cousin wore a sensible ballcap and a whistle around her neck. Their responses were the same, however; an exchanged look and an apprehensive gaze back at Nancy.

"The first day of summer and you tell me this," Bess moaned. "When?"

"Really early September, I think. I'll be coming back before Christmas."

"And how has Ned taken it?" George asked.

"I haven't told him yet," Nancy replied. "But he was at my dad's office this morning. He walked out like there was nothing wrong, and he hasn't bothered to explain himself."

"Maybe he's…" Bess shrugged lamely. "I can't think of any excuses. Is he out of circulation?"

"I left him a voicemail and he texted me back. He'll be at the party tonight."

"So are you going to tell him at the party?"

"That seems so…" Nancy sighed and ran a hand over her hair. "Probably not. I'm supposed to have dinner with his parents tonight, though, so maybe then."

--

"Want to maybe play some cards?"

"Nancy and I are going to a party after this."

"You two are too old for humoring the grownups, anyway."

Edith said the words easily enough, but her manner was affected. She kept glancing between her son and husband, the expression around her eyes wary. Nancy felt that if she could just talk to Edith for two seconds alone, maybe Edith would stop shooting glances Nancy was sure were fraught with meaning in her direction.

Nancy had barely had enough time to exchange meaningful conversation with Ned in the past day, much less with his family. She felt sick inside when she remembered how easily she and her father had discussed her leaving, but here, the breeze blowing in through the open windows over their dinner, the pleasant chatter between her fiancé and future in-laws, there were no words. Nothing could have made her speak the words.

James was telling a joke and Nancy had to bite back a sudden gasp of laughter rising from her throat, at the way his expression reminded her of the one he had worn during Ned's Freudian pregnancy slip. Edith's eyes changed again.

And despite her feeling that now was not the time, she suddenly wanted to tell Edith everything. Tell her that she might be leaving her son behind again, but this time it wouldn't be for so long, for the same selfish reasons.

Ned.

Mike's impassioned plea for Ned's happiness above her own.

"Hey."

Ned's fingers were tangled around hers under the spotlit brilliance of the porch light, the noise of the crickets overloud as they left his parents' house for the party. Nancy had changed into a thin t-shirt and denim miniskirt after an afternoon of sunbathing, and Ned was wearing a screenprinted shirt for some obscure band they had seen in concert together and a pair of faded jeans. She thought he looked incredibly sexy, and leaned up to give him a kiss.

While she was still close enough to hear his breath she murmured, "Why were you at Dad's office today?"

"My mom's watching at the door, let's continue this in the car," he returned, and pressed his lips against her cheek briefly.

His eyes were warm and open as she looked into them from the driver's side seat of her Mustang. Her questions seemed unimportant under his gaze.

"I'll tell you after the party."

_And I'll tell you_, she replied silently as she started her car.

--

"You look nice."

"Thanks," George replied to Ned, twirling around so her dress caught the dim lighting. She was wearing a short black dress covered in silver, its hem just above her knees, the neckline swooping modestly low for George's standards.

"I feel downright mousy next to her," Bess admitted, joining their group. She took a sip from her plastic tumbler. "She looks fantastic and here I am in jeans."

Nancy hooked her arm through Bess's. "Okay, you said there was a good reason for us to be here tonight?"

Bess brightened. "Marcy's brother's band," she replied. "They're out in the gazebo."

"The gazebo?" Ned raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"Better sound, or something." Bess shrugged.

In the sunken living room, for those who did not prefer their music live, a crowd was packed onto the floor dancing in front of the standing speakers. Nancy and Ned joined it.

Some interminable time later they finished a dance, so close together that Nancy could feel his quickened heartbeat, and when Ned pulled back from her Nancy felt her worry subside, her heart in her eyes. Everything would be all right. They had the entire summer ahead of them. Four months apart wasn't the end of the world, not when they had been apart longer.

"Let's talk," Ned said, and took her hand.

The shadowed rooms were occupied by preoccupied bodies, so in the end they settled on the car. Despite the warmth of the interior, Ned made no move to roll down the windows. Nancy looked across at him, the sounds of the party dwindling from her hearing, his hand lightly resting on hers. He looked ill at ease, his gaze darting around, resting on anything but her.

"Ned, you're acting like there's another girl," she said, stifling a laugh.

His eyes met hers with such intensity that she couldn't draw her breath for a moment. He studied her, and only the ghost of a smile crossed his lips.

"They want me to go pro," he said.

The silence after those words trembled in the still air of the car. Nancy fought the sudden urge to pull her hand away from his. She felt like she couldn't breathe.

"They?"

He explained in short, concise sentences. The agents, the offer, the time he would be taking off if he chose to do it, the contract he had shown to her father, the compensation, the options. All the while, his fingers, a little damp against hers, trembling slightly, but still in her grasp.

By the end of his recitation she was gazing out through the windshield. _No, no_, she thought. _It's not supposed to be this way. He's not supposed to be leaving me._

"I won't see you," she said, her voice small.

He looked down, and the hurt in his voice was terrible. "Not if you don't want to."

She kept her eyes on him, daring him to look at her. "How can I?" she asked.

"It's not like I'm going to be across the country all the time," he said. Then something in his voice was hard. "Besides, it's not like I didn't—"

Her anger broke then. He was right. He had followed her everywhere, any case, any means, had been there to be her lookout, her support, her accomplice.

She would have smiled, but she couldn't find it in her. "They want me to go to Spain," she said.

"When?"

"Fall semester. For a journalism program."

"Have you told them yes?"

"Have you?" she countered.

He shook his head. "I took the contract to your dad to see if it was legit," he said. "I didn't want to bring it to you and find out I'd signed the next five years of my life away on a product endorsement for Viagra."

She laughed then, and he did too, and it helped a little with the falling feeling in her stomach. "So that's why you were in dad's office."

He nodded. "No prenup, no… whatever."

"We haven't even talked about that," she said quietly. "Dad said he'd draw one up if I wanted."

"Do you want?" he asked. "Because if I do sign that contract, you will be engaged to a suddenly much wealthier fiancé."

She shook her head, slowly. "Start the car," she said.

Nancy kept a key to their promised house on her keychain, and she let them in, her hand in his, led them up the stairs to the blue bedroom. Even though they were alone, she closed the door, and just stood there, facing him, eyes closed, the stillness quivering around her.

Her hand released his and she opened her eyes. "Do you want this?"

He studied her carefully for a moment. "Do you want to go to Spain and do this program?"

She walked over to the bed and sat down. "I didn't want to do it while I thought I was leaving you here," she said. "I thought maybe it would be too much. But I never imagined this. I never thought you'd be telling me this tonight. It feels like you're leaving." She looked up into his eyes, and hers were swimming with tears.

"I'm not," he said, and sighed. "Not that way."

She made a frustrated noise and reached up to brush away the tears that had spilled over onto her cheeks. "You could get hurt," she said.

He reached over and took her chin into his hands, forcing her eyes to meet his. "This isn't about what ifs," he said quietly. "This is about whether you are okay with me doing this. And… you're going to be on the other side of the ocean. The other side of the world."

"Would you ask me to stay?"

He shook his head slowly. "I wouldn't ask you to stay when I'm thinking about leaving."

After a long silence, during which they did not look at each other, Nancy stood up and positioned herself between his bent knees, tugged his shirt off. He looked up at her from the bed, unable to speak, and she took her own shirt off, then crawled underneath the covers. He joined her, and his embrace was strong enough to crush.

"Tell me we'll make it through this," she said softly.

"We will."

"You're not leaving me," she said, and wiped her cheek.

He rested his forehead on the crown of her head. "I'm not leaving you. I would never leave you."

She drew a choked breath, her voice wavering. "What will we do when I'm back?"

He stroked his hand over her hair. "We will have a great Christmas," he said. "I'll be in Chicago except when I'm gone for games. We'll have time to see each other."

"Would you do this forever?"

"You mean quit school?" He shook his head. "I'm not going to quit school. But, Nan, I haven't shown it to you. We'll be set. The money they're giving me, the product endorsements…"

She wiped her face again. "Ned, I'd be happy with you even if we were in some tiny apartment in Emersonville, eating ramen noodles."

He laughed. "We'd still have the option," he said. "But we'd have other ones too."

--

She jolted awake in the blue shadow of the cold room, not remembering falling asleep. She remembered trying to commit his heartbeat to memory. She remembered a sudden impassioned makeout session, struggling out of her skirt, but the unchallenged final layer still remained. Pinstriped boxers. Her flesh still felt tender from the sun, and the flush of sudden knowledge that whatever did happen before the year ended, their relationship would not be the same. Her bra strap slipped down on her shoulder, his fingers curled around the elastic of her string bikini, and she looked down at him for a long moment, willing herself not to cry.

_What if he gets drafted_, she thought, and smiled vaguely. She'd always imagined war, not some astroturf destination reached via private jets and limousines. Watching him carefully, she slipped back beneath the blankets, under his arm, pressed her face against his chest. Slow rise and fall, the warmth of the sheets around them, his skin, and she wished the sun would reverse its course, prevent her father's questions about where she had spent the night.

_In my room, Daddy._

He moved, and cooler air interposed between them before he sighed and nestled back into her embrace again. She reached up just as his eyes opened, and stroked his hair, softly, his arms tightening around her.

"Spain," he said, and she nodded. "When did you apply?"

"Before you came back," she said softly.

"For just Spain?"

She shook her head. "They have local programs. I thought I'd get into one of those. Spain is a great opportunity, though. It would look great on my resumé."

"You sound like you're parroting back their brochure."

"You can't stay at Emerson and still sign the contract?"

He shook his head. "I can't defer it," he replied, brushing her hair back. "I can do this now and have experience and maybe a better deal once I get out of school. Or no deal. Or I might not sign again." He quirked a smile. "Sign away a year of my life to the devil and see what it affords me."

"Don't say it like that," she said.

He leaned forward and pressed his lips against her temple. "Give me a good reason and I won't sign."

She closed her eyes. "What did Dad say about it?"

"It's straightforward. It's everything it seems to be. No loopholes, no hidden surprises or clauses. A year with the option."

"I wish you could go to Spain with me."

"I wish I could too, baby."

"Me not wanting you to do this isn't good enough reason?"

He pulled back, and she met his eyes. "Why wouldn't you?" he asked.

She faltered, and looked away. "The lifestyle," she said. "National exposure and girls and wild parties and you could get drafted and you could find someone else and—"

"And gifted journalism students and cute Spanish guys and you flitting about on the Continent, writing articles, going to work for a newspaper over there, and you could find someone else—"

She shook her head. "I won't go to work for a newspaper over there."

"Why not?" Ned asked. "Why wouldn't you become a correspondent, write for the _Times_ or _National Geographic_, surround yourself with fascinating successful people. Anyone with half a brain can do this, anyone with half a brain can go pro, run around on a field."

"That's not true," she said. "Ned, you're talented. Everyone who sees you play knows it. It takes more than a brain stem with well-developed legs and a pair of arms to do what you do. And if this is what you want to do—"

"I want to be with you!" he said, and he was trembling. "And I don't want to leave, but I thought you would understand. I thought you would support me on this."

"You can't promise me that there won't be dozens of beautiful girls there."

"You can't promise me, either," he said. "I'm not going to fall for anyone else, Nan."

She looked away.

"That's what you're afraid of, deep down," he said. "How could you think that I would be so distracted by all this that I would just forget about you? Do you think that's what will happen when you go to Spain?"

"You say it like I've already decided to go," she said.

"You'd better," he replied. "Do you think I wouldn't go to the ends of the earth to be with you?"

"Not if you're signed to a pro contract," she replied. "Not if you are bound to some strip of land, some franchise."

He moved away from her then, stopped touching her, and that was when she felt the first real thread of fear break through the denial.

--

Her heart had been racing, but her father hadn't been in the armchair, disapproving expression on his face. The house was utterly quiet.

She stood at the doorway of her room and let her eyes wander over the furniture without seeing any of it. The canopy, the pale yellow bedspread, the CD collection, the dresser. The picture of Ned on the bedside table.

She stepped out of her shoes and skirt, put the picture face-down on the table, and slid underneath the covers, but couldn't sleep. Not for the rest of that day; her cell phone was off, her ringer muted. She stripped off her clothes around twilight and stood under the shower head, letting the water provide the release of tears.

Iris knocked on the door, later. Nancy was sitting on her bed, wrapped in a bath sheet, her hair still damp, unable to summon up the energy to find anything to put on. Her gaze, once centered, tended to remain, and right now it was on the front left foot of a small glassed cabinet.

"Nancy?"

"Yes?"

Iris opened the door. "Ned's downstairs," she said. "Want me to tell him it'll be a few minutes?"

Nancy shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm off somewhere and you don't know when I'll be back."

"Your car's still here."

"Bess came by for me."

"Bess called earlier," Iris said. "I thought you weren't here."

Nancy shrugged. "Thanks," she said.

Iris reached over for Nancy's hand, tilted it so the diamond gleamed. "Just checking," she said.

The door closed behind Iris, and Nancy looked down at the ring, absently. She took it off and held it between her fingers.

_Maybe we should break—_

Something inside her screamed then, with more energy than she had had all day. She dropped the ring, dropped the towel on the floor, and huddled back under the covers, watching the shadows lengthen.

--

His car was parked outside the insurance company.

She gazed at it, that same stillness in her eyes. Odd, that he would be working, with a pro deal waiting in the wings. Her inbox was jammed with unreturned messages, from him, from Bess, from George. She couldn't find words. Ringless fingers.

Six months ago, eloping with him had seemed like a glorious dream. Now she couldn't even wear his ring, couldn't put it back on her finger. He would have to do that. He would have to choose to do that.

He'd come by every night that week, to hear the same patently false excuse. Iris had reported that he'd said no, Nancy was not with Bess, he had called Bess and Bess had wanted to know what was going on as well. Iris had simply shrugged, and said she would pass it on.

"Nancy, tell me what's wrong," Iris had said.

Nancy shook her head. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'll take care of it."

--

Carson knew, without asking. Carson waited. But Nancy didn't come to him, didn't come to anyone. She left the house sometimes, and he didn't know where she went, all he knew was that she didn't go to Ned, didn't call Ned, didn't want to talk to him when he came to their door, a little less composed every night. He'd sent roses, but she wouldn't let them pass her threshold.

The caged look faded a little when Nancy saw that Hannah had been invited over for dinner. The four of them ate, three of them chatting, with Nancy pushing her plate away, saying it had been excellent but she wasn't hungry, the same as she'd said every night.

Nancy waited, hands clasped, the ring on top of the picture beside her bed, both facing away from her. After a few minutes Hannah's gentle knock sounded at the door, and she peered inside.

"I heard," Hannah said, and waited.

And Nancy opened her arms, tears in her eyes.

--

The floodgates burst and Nancy poured it all into Hannah's embrace, her face wet and red, voice clogged with tears. That he would forget, that he already had, that he would go across the country, that he would marry someone else, that he would discover that with his own notoriety that he didn't need hers, didn't need to put up with the obligations on her time and attention that took away from her devotion to their relationship. That there were people out there, girls, who could and would adore him, fawn over him, adjust their lives, their every breath, to merging with his, being with him.

How could he not see? How could he not understand it, it was so clear to her.

"He's not just doing this for him," Hannah said, seriously. "He's doing this for you too."

Maybe they should take a breather. Maybe that's what they needed, some perspective on the whole thing. They had been talking about marriage so long, and then, it was hard to think about it, they would be apart for four, almost five months. That was how cheating began. She knew it. She remembered. Little indiscretions the other would never know about. A casual meaningless flirtation, an accepted but certainly not enjoyed kiss by moonlight. Oh yes, she knew the myriad ways it could happen, it could be justified. Especially with him surrounded by guys who had no problems paying for sex or drugs or pretty much anything else.

"I won't even give him that for free," she said. "We haven't, I won't, I told him I won't, and we'll be apart, and we were apart before and he was with someone else, and—"

"But you weren't engaged then," Hannah said. Even though something in her eyes had shifted.

"He doesn't trust me."

She didn't trust herself.

--

Hannah was long gone.

Nancy wanted the oblivion of sleep. And for a while, with disbelief she could not quite suspend, she dreamt that Ned decided to stay with her. He wanted her. He wanted to go to Spain with her, and be by her side, and how could he have ever doubted her…

She woke and the happiness faded immediately upon her consciousness of breath. She was shocked by how much she had wanted it to be true. The alarm clock beside her bed winked off another minute, and she turned her head to look at it.

Something was wrong.

She stayed frozen there, cold and alert. A shadow unfolded itself, resolved, and her eyes flicked to the closed door, gauging the distance.

Ned.

"How did you get in here?" she asked.

"I know where you keep the spare key."

She tugged a pillow behind her back and turned on the bedside lamp. Her gaze was steady, up at him; he looked different. Something in his eyes she couldn't read, some distance.

Then he saw the ring by her bedside, and his jaw tightened. "There's a press conference in the morning," he said, still staring at it. "I came here to ask if you'd go with me. Stand with me."

She looked at the ring, then back at him.

"Are you breaking up with me? Is this what this past week has been?"

She drew her knees up to her chest, curved her arms around them. "No," she said. "But maybe I should."

"Why?"

She studied his features, warm trembling calm over the fear. "You're going to be gone. You don't trust me. And after this year we could be farther apart than ever. I don't know. I don't know how it will be. I don't want to let you go, I don't want to leave you behind, but if I do, maybe it's better that we do this with no strings attached and no claim on each other."

"You don't want to feel guilty when you find someone else."

She looked away, smiling faintly, in spite of her feelings. "Maybe I could accuse you of the same."

He sat down at the foot of her bed, rubbed his palms over his face. "I won't give you a clear conscience for this."

"What's it worth, Ned? How much would it mean to you, would you rather risk that I would hurt you?"

He was quiet for a minute. "What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me the truth."

He looked down, at the phone clenched in his hand, and let it fall to the comforter. "The rep is waiting," he said. "I have to call him and tell him yes or no. Whether I will be there in the morning or not. He can't wait any longer. All you have to do right now is shake your head and say you won't go with me, and I will call him and tell him no. I'll tell him it's more important to me to stay with my fiancée and my schoolwork, that maybe I'll see him again in a year, but for now…"

She met his eyes. "I'll go with you."

"You will?"

At the surprise in his eyes, she had to look away. "I signed yesterday," she said, her voice shaking. "I'm going to Spain."

--

"What does this mean," he asked, after. After he had called and she had heard audible cheering on the other end of the line.

"It means you'll be on the moon," she said, seriously. "That we have three months before, to pack, and prepare, and plan, for you to start believing me when I tell you that there will be no one else, and for me to believe you won't let this go to your head."

He picked up the ring. "Why did you take it off?"

She rubbed her hand over her forehead and sighed. "I'm hurt," she said. "I was hurt. And you're the only one who can put it back on me."

"Why were you hurt?"

"Because you considered it," she said. "Because I thought you'd tell me not to leave you. I would have stayed for you, Ned. My dad would have been angry, everyone would have thought it was stupid, but I would have stayed here. I thought you'd never do this. I thought I'd never have to make this kind of choice, I thought the next two years of my life were planned. Graduation and our wedding. I thought that was going to be it. I thought you'd be there, and you won't be," she said, her voice pitching up at the end of it as her tears spilled.

"I won't be on the moon."

"You may as well be," she said. "For all the time you'll waste on calling me or even thinking about me, one of us may as well be on the moon."

"Nancy, I think about you every day," he said. "I thought about you every day when we were apart."

"I can't see how this is going to end anymore," she whispered. "It scares me."

"We're not going to end," he said.

She blinked up at him. "Did you really want me to go?"

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Honestly? No," he replied. "If I could I'd keep you with me, smuggle you in as a cheerleader, whatever it took. I didn't even really want to leave you at Wilder, but even that seems better than this."

"Tell them to put it in the press release," she said. "Ned Nickerson, engaged to longtime girlfriend Nancy Drew. Every one. Every time."

"Why wouldn't you talk to me?"

"I wanted to see if it would be easier that way," she whispered.

"To do what?" His voice expressionless, hers the same as she answered.

"Practice," she said. "Days when I don't hear from you. When you can't send roses or make phone calls. I feel—I don't know how I feel. Jealous, mostly. Jealous of the time you'll be spending."

"Don't you think I've felt that way our entire relationship?"

"Then it wasn't fair," she countered. "It wasn't fair for us to get back together."

"That's not what I meant," he said.

"Then what did you mean?"

He looked away. "You didn't ask for this," he said. "This wasn't part of the bargain. I didn't think I'd ever be leaving you either, Nan."

She was quiet for a minute, waiting for the lump in her throat to shrink. She looked over at the ring. "It's your choice," she said. "Whether we trust that six or twelve months from now, we feel the same way we did the night you put that on my finger."

"I know I will," he said.

"I know I will."

Ned had never been in Nancy's bedroom before. It was one of Carson's firm rules, and he didn't make that many. She took her clothes, her jewelry, everything off, except the ring he had placed back on her finger, and Ned divested himself of all but his boxers and joined her, despite his anxious glance at her closed bedroom door. She was warm, slow with tiredness, her face nestled against his shoulder.

"Do you want to…?"

"Yes," she murmured, eyes still closed. "But not right now."

The presence of her father down the hall dampened any more urgent questioning. Ned bent his face close to hers, trying to memorize her, the way she felt in his arms, the smoothness of her skin, the cadence of her breath. He couldn't sleep; his heart was beating far too quickly, aching. He had come into her room prepared to drive away, without a girlfriend or fiancée, and announce his contract to the world with a heavy heart.

Now he had her, but she would be on the moon.

--

Maybe before, the return of the ring onto her finger, maybe that had been a vow of some kind. Maybe that would be enough. Maybe that was why she had answered the way she had, so unexpectedly. Maybe she was still asleep, dreaming, the way he had been that morning in the cabin.

The summer before Nancy had left for college, they had explored each other this way, daring with tongues and fingertips and whispered words to approach but not cross the line they had agreed upon. He had never been so in love with her, so drunk at her very presence, and then that sudden deepened intimacy had vanished until he hadn't known the girl on the other end of the phone line at all.

"We're going to be fine."

He wanted to believe.

--

Nancy didn't bother explaining Ned's presence at the breakfast table. "We're going to a press conference," she said. "Ned's going pro."

The tears had washed her out. She felt nothing, really, as she watched Carson and Iris congratulate her fiancé. The sunlight caught on the ring.

"Nancy."

Ned caught up with her as she walked out to the car, in a daze. She could take it back, she could revoke her permission, she had time. He tilted her chin up so he could meet her eyes.

"You sure you want to do this?"

_No_. But she nodded, anyway, thinking of the time she had already signed away. In anger. In the knowledge that he would be tempted, and she would deserve it if he fell.

She texted George and Bess, once she found out where the conference would air, and stood at his side. Not in the blue silk. Green scoop-necked dress with ivory buttons. He looked devastatingly handsome in his suit. Flashbulbs everywhere. He hadn't shaken hands yet. She could still pull him away. Lead him by the hand out to the car, drive until they ran out of gas, until they couldn't breathe from relieved laughter, his fingers shaking on the ivory buttons. She wanted to whisper in his ear that if they could leave right now, she would do it, would pay for a hotel room, would give him anything he wanted, if only…

and then the handshake, the ink still drying in the contract, the formal announcement that fell like dead leaves against her ear.

She was a secondary in the cutline, buried in the melee. She was a muted cardboard cutout, heart fluttering like a caged bird in her chest, desperate, and she wanted to scream that he was not theirs to take. He was hers. And she was cutting her heart in two to stand next to him without tears pouring down her face, her skin still warm with the remembered feel of his.

Was this how it had felt to him? A lifetime ago, at the edge of the halo of flashbulbs, a smiling face in the crowd, unrecognized?

"…okay if we go? Nan?"

"Hmm?" The mask was not fully in place, and Ned could see through the cracks, but his eyes were warm, concerned, on hers. She tried to look alert and interested.

"Go to lunch with Danny."

"Okay."

--

Ned had a rap sheet.

Nancy did too, of course. She and Ned had both been arrested on suspicion for various crimes; murder, extortion, and, for one memorable case she thought she'd never solve, assault and battery, when Ned had been overzealous while interrogating guy she had suspected of poisoning her.

She felt interest stirring as Danny, the agent, the guy who would become Ned's new best friend, discussed ways they could break that news before the press found it. Preferably soon, preferably with Nancy, the reason for all of Ned's felonious activities, by his side.

"You do have a lawyer, right? Because if you don't, we can…"

"Nancy's father." He nodded in her direction.

At least he would be in good hands while she was gone. Nancy took a measured sip of water.

Another guy, who was somehow finding room for a steak dinner at lunchtime, started talking about training camp, practices, and Nancy's head whipped around to gaze at Ned. More time they wouldn't be spending together? His hand tightened on hers.

"We have press copy from Emerson."

He passed over the stiff watermarked stationery from Dean Jarvis, the glowing academic record, the outstanding athletics, and even a mention of her as his fiancée, the campus celebrity who was practically an honorary student. She smiled and wondered if it would be cut from the published bios of her fiancé, the unknown quickly on his way to becoming a star.

Local God.

She started noticing, seeing significance in the way Ned's agent scowled into his cell phone, the worried glance over the training coach's shoulder, the unflustered calm of the waiter. She wished for a case. Something to stop her from sitting at his right hand like a sycophant, waiting for his approval or wish to sustain her existence. She wanted something violent and complicated and all-consuming, so she could forget for a while.

"Nan."

For the first time since his signing, he was gazing straight at her, all his attention on her, and it took her breath away.

"I'd love to come."

Come meet all the other girls, who get to look the other way while the boys sample the buffet.

--

Just a few last things, he would meet her in the car.

Nancy checked the caller ID before answering her phone. "Did you see it?"

"Yeah," George replied. "Wow."

"Yeah," Nancy replied. She rested a hand lightly on her forehead before drawing it away, slick with her nervous perspiration. "That's about all I can say, too."

"So, I guess this favor I'm going to ask isn't going to happen."

"What favor?"

The coed summer camp at Fox Lake needed counselors, and George was on their call list. Between the four of them they could all have hosted their own camp, but Bess was reluctant to go unless Nancy also came.

Nancy was laughing when Ned emerged from the building, onto the heat of the sidewalk, coat over his arm, sleeves pushed to his elbows, dark sunglasses over his eyes. "And Bess would be doing what?"

"Drama coach," George replied. "Good practice."

"And you?"

"They need a sailing instructor. Or two. And someone who's good at archery. That's you, Nan."

Nancy darted a glance at Ned. "How forgiving is the schedule?"

"Oh, we don't go for another two weeks."

"Fox Lake, huh?" Ned replied after Nancy had pitched him the idea. "I'd love to go, if it would work around my schedule."

"We'll see," she said.

--

Half of River Heights had seen the press conference, and that half had told the other half. Nancy couldn't go anywhere without someone offering congratulations, and gushing over her ring, which was some consolation. Because Ned didn't leave her side, except the occasional evening when his parents were begging to see him again.

They spent almost every night together. Every party, every social event, the guys all joking about how they wanted to see his super bowl ring once he had one, the girls giving her jealous glances. Most of the time Carson didn't even blink those mornings when Nancy walked in, still wearing the same clothes from the night before, hair hastily finger-combed. When Carson was worried, he called Hannah, who reported that yes, Nancy was safe in her guest bedroom. Never alone, but Carson never asked.

A more sobered Wendy hosted a party at the beach house, and Nancy attended with Ned as always in tow, their fingers interlaced. Courtesy of the French cooking course and due to Patrick's unfortunate prison sentence, Ned took over grilling duties, with several of the guys coming over to ask him about his contract. Don Cameron entered with Susan Cook, a dark-haired girl who had gone to Ned's high school, and Nancy felt the marginal worry she had been feeling relax.

"So how are things, Nancy?"

Wendy hadn't changed entirely. She was still dressed like a debutante, in hot pink and a miniskirt, but the party itself was vaguely reminiscent of high school anyway. Nancy smiled at her.

"Pretty good."

"So Ned's been signed to a football team and you two are getting married? Before he leaves for training camp?"

Nancy ducked her head. "No, not before he leaves for training camp. We need to finish school first."

Wendy laughed. "You mean he's actually going back to school after that?"

It did seem pointless, Nancy realized, as she watched Ned adjust the grill. Local God. If he was any good, they would want to sign him on again. Her heart sank.

Had they been fooling themselves? Or maybe he hadn't been fooled at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Nancy and Ned weren't speaking.

The day before they'd all come down to Fox Lake for the camp, they'd had some big argument. Bess never could decipher anything other than "stupid jerk" from what Nancy muttered when she saw him. She was so angry that she couldn't talk about it.

And it was Nancy who had come up with the idea.

Each of them had to supervise a cabin of eight children. Ned, of course, had boys; the girls supervised girls. During the second night, when each cabin was still doing icebreaker and bonding activities, Nancy had tossed aside her leader's guide, which had suggested their next activity involve playing the "I'm going on a trip" memory game.

"Everyone got a black outfit?"

The next morning, the toilets nearest Ned's cabin were covered in peanut butter. And, consequently, ants.

After swimming the next day, all the girls including Nancy found their dresser drawers full of grasshoppers.

One night, after the girls had filled the guys' shoes with marshmallow creme, Nancy stole Ned's journal. The following night her diary was stolen, along with all the girls' swimsuits. Nancy's cabin retaliated by holding the guys' swimsuits hostage, and negotiated a return, but after the guys wore their returned swimsuits, whatever skin the suit had touched turned a bright purple.

George and Bess tried to keep their cabins out of the melee, but once they had some girls sneaking away to help Nancy's crew, they sent the warring sides a message.

Tug of war at high noon. Winner takes all, and an end to the prank war.

They were all tired from keeping vigil at night, waiting for the other team to strike. Nancy was still seething that Ned had reprogrammed her cell phone to ring with the theme from Star Wars, one of his favorite movies. Not that it mattered, since their cell phones received poor signal. The camp was in the middle of nowhere.

Nancy and Ned stood at the middle of the rope, just over a manmade mudhole created specifically for the occasion. Behind them the campers were arranged lightest to heaviest. The girls were glaring, the boys were leering, and Nancy's gaze was locked with Ned's.

"They might just set fire to each other," Bess remarked.

George stifled a chuckle and raised the checkered flag. "Go!"

No one had made any check for contraband material. The girls and boys were wearing cleats, and Nancy and Ned were each wearing rappelling gloves. The boys were more determined, but the girls were angry. Nancy reached out to feign a swipe at her fiancé. That was the reason Bess had not been too concerned; throughout the whole thing, Nancy hadn't taken off her engagement ring.

With a final tug the boys pulled Nancy and the girl in brown pigtails behind her down into the pond, and with a sudden jerk Nancy caught Ned off his feet and he fell in as well. The two of them still glared at each other, covered in mud, but Jasmine, the girl behind Nancy, started laughing uncontrollably.

Ned was the first to crack, and soon the two of them were hysterical, with the campers around them picking up mud and slinging it at each other.

So it was over.

--

During the three-day rest break between sessions, the four of them hung out in the mess hall. Lily, who had been a counselor two previous years, brought a dusty old jukebox out of storage, and they danced to songs that had been popular before they had even graduated high school. After a slow one Ned excused himself to take a phone call, and Nancy sat at their table and watched Bess dance with one of the male counselors, a guy named Angelo.

"Know anything about him?" Nancy nodded in his direction.

George shrugged her lean, tan shoulders. Both she and Ned had spent so many hours on the lake teaching sailing courses that they were nearly brown. "Not much," she replied. "Just that Bess thinks he's dreamy." George batted her eyelashes, then laughed as Bess stuck her tongue out at her.

The public address system crackled to life, and Nancy was paged to the front desk. "Wonder if Ned got in trouble," she mused, then walked out.

Fox Lake was familiar to her. The side with the camp less so, but it was all the same, really; the fresh scent of pine needles, grass crackling with heat under her feet, and then the lake a few hundred yards to her right, its sandy bank visible through the trees. During the break while they cleaned up and prepared for the new set of campers, the place was comparatively silent. Tomorrow it wouldn't be, with a massive prearranged water balloon fight, but for now they were just glad to have a break.

Ned was nodding at something he heard through the receiver, as she approached. The woman who had paged Nancy nodded in his direction, smiled at Nancy, then returned to her paperwork.

When he hung up the phone Ned lifted Nancy off the floor and into his arms. "I'll be at Emerson after Christmas," he said.

"What?" Nancy asked, confused.

"Dean Jarvis looked at my schedule, and what the team was saying they needed from me, and I'll be able to graduate on time. Besides, the season's practically over after winter break anyway." He smiled down at her.

"Oh, Ned, that's great," she said, reaching up to kiss him. "So you'll be back in school and I'll be back and..."

"Yeah," he finished for her, and kissed the tip of her nose. "They might need me a few weekends, but my teachers are fine with that. And this way I'll get to play baseball for Emerson."

--

_He'll be home._

What they were doing was strictly forbidden, but Nancy was pretty sure they wouldn't be caught. The repercussions would not be as harsh, either, not while the counselors were the only ones at the camp. And he was her fiancé.

And besides, it wasn't like she was really sleeping with Ned. Except in the most literal sense.

She reached up and pushed a lock of hair off his forehead. He was peaceful beside her, passed out from a long day cleaning out the sailboats and giving them fresh coats of paint. His skin was dark, under hers. She was wearing a cotton camisole and sleep shorts, and had her travel alarm set so she could leave his cabin still under cover of darkness.

He turned in his sleep and she set herself to memorizing every contour of his face in the grade between light and shadow, the curve of his cheek, the line of his mouth, the angle of his jaw. She ran her fingertips lightly down the side of his face and he made a soft noise.

Five months. It would feel like a lifetime, but she could do it, if he would be here. If she knew things would be like this again.

"Go to sleep," he whispered, reaching out for her, and she allowed herself to be drawn into the circle of his arms, her heart swelling at his closeness.

--

The next day, George and Nancy had grabbed some dessert from the frozen yogurt stand after a grueling few hours of shopping. George had come for a new pair of tennis shoes; Nancy had come for a new watch and had gone perilously close to reaching the limit on her father's gold card.

"So Ned's going to training camp this weekend?" George licked the back of her spoon.

"Yeah. This weekend and again in two more weeks." Nancy sighed, tracing a pattern on the table with the tip of her straw. "It's already taken all the charm he has to stay this long, and to only stay for weekends when they're practicing. After I'm gone I think he'll have to do double-time to make up for this."

"But at least you get to see him, right?"

"Yeah." She discarded the straw, then dragged her spoon through her slowly melting yogurt. "I've even snuck over and spent the night at his place a couple of times, but..."

"What?" George had temporarily abandoned her dessert and was looking with frank curiosity at Nancy.

"I can't believe I'll be gone. I can't believe that we're going to be apart this long."

"What are you worried about, Nan?" George propped her chin up on her hand. "He'll be here when you get back, don't worry. We'll keep him in line."

"Thanks." Nancy smiled softly. "You do that."

--

The strength with which she missed him was becoming embarrassing. And worrying.

He came back at three o'clock on the Monday morning, and a minute after she'd heard his shoes crunch on the gravel through her open window she was out, making her way quietly on the path between their cabins. Ned had his overnight bag on one shoulder, but when he saw her he dropped it and extended his arms.

"Ned," she breathed, putting her arms around him and holding him tight to her.

"Hey babe," he said into her hair. "I missed you."

"Missed you too," she managed.

"Want to come inside with me?"

The only sleep she managed to get was during the time after he had stopped sliding his fingers delicately over her skin, as though afraid she would pop and disintegrate into nothingness, after they had talked for hours about what he had done over the weekend and how they could possibly get through the time they were apart. But neither of them said it directly, neither of them mentioned it directly.

When she fell asleep it was with her head nestled into the hollow of his shoulder, and a smile on her face.

--

"Nan."

She was walking over the fine carpet of pine needles on the ground, the sun weak and anemic through the trees overhead. She brushed her reddish-gold bangs off her forehead, grimacing at the sticky feel of her skin.

"Hey."

He smiled very slightly, but stayed quiet until he was close enough to touch her. "I missed you last night."

"I missed you too," she whispered. "I couldn't get away."

He took her hand in his. "Three more days."

"You have to go?" Her voice soft and pleading, she twined her arm around his and pressed close to his shoulder.

"It's not like I want to," he said, lacing his fingers between hers as they climbed over a fallen log. "But this is what we've chosen."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," she murmured.

--

Ned had called her after practice. Nancy had talked to him with her heart in her mouth and he'd let it slip that the guys were planning to go out later and she had urged him to go with them. And then she had changed into her pajamas and sat cross-legged on her bed, rocking back and forth gently, staring at the dark rectangle of her window, thinking with a trembling warmth of all the reasons she shouldn't cry. Once she had forced the feeling back down, she turned on her fan and flipped off her lights and lay unblinking on her lonely narrow bed.

Just over two weeks was all they had left. Just over two weeks. The entire summer was gone.

She slept and the fan in her window blew the sound and smell of the thousand insects and the pines and the faint brackish scent of water from the lake. She didn't dream, she couldn't, not with the growing knot in her stomach, not with the thick bitter taste of tears rising in her throat.

And then she woke, red-gold hair in a tangle down her back and the thin strap of her white camisole sliding down her tanned shoulder, when the night outside was pitch black and the fan was whining its protest because it was on a chair, and her fan was on a chair because it wasn't in the window anymore, and the shadow above her bed resolved into the familiar profile of her fiancé. She drew in a breath, pushing herself up on her elbow, blue eyes rising to meet his.

"I couldn't stay away from you," he whispered, and gave her the faintest smile.

He smelled of aftershave and the cologne she had given him for Christmas one year and faintly of night. He had driven with the windows down. All the way back to her. His hand was resting just above her shoulder. He lowered his index finger ever so slightly and pressed his fingertip against her skin.

From the expression on his face she knew he felt the same quick, violently electric spark she did.

She rose to her knees and reached up to put her arms around him, her lips parting softly, holding him tight. "Ned," she breathed, her face pressed against his shirt.

He stroked her back a few times, soft sweeps of his palm over her skin, then reached for her chin and tilted it back. Her eyes gleamed and searched his.

He leaned down, his fingertips sliding against her scalp, his thumb tracing the soft line of her jaw, and then they were kissing and his mouth was warm against hers. His knee slid onto the bed, he was half-kneeling over her and she was speechless.

When they broke, panting for breath, she pulled her top over her head before her fears of his reaction could still her. She could feel the warmth radiating off his skin during the faintest hesitation before he shifted his weight fully to the bed and touched her again. His shoes thudded softly to the floor, one at a time, as he kicked them off. She rose to her knees, her thighs trembling, and pressed her forehead to his, eyes closed, breathing against his open mouth, and he tilted his head and he was kissing her again, urgent, possessive. She slid forward and their legs were tangled, she was straddling one doubled thigh as she slipped her fingertips along the hem of his shirt. He pulled his mouth from hers with an audible pop, pulled his shirt off in one smooth movement and she straddled him again, fully this time, her white cotton shorts against his jeans, her breasts against his chest as their mouths met again without hesitation or breath. He was making small soft noises, her thighs flush against his hips, his hands resting at the small of her back, and their kiss became simply the motionless touch of their wet swelled mouths.

"I love you," he told her, putting his arms around her waist and pulling her tight against him.

"I love you too," she murmured, folding her arms and pulling him in tight to her. She rested her cheek against his, stroking his hair softly. "So, so much."

He held her until her pulse began to slow. Then he reached behind his back and unhooked her legs, and she pressed herself up on his shoulders and pulled back until she was merely kneeling over him, her blue eyes meeting his with the slightest question but there was so much trust in her gaze.

"What's wrong," she managed.

"I want you," he murmured in reply.

She reached up and drew his face down to hers, kissed him sweetly. When they broke apart she led his face to her shoulder, turned her head to whisper into his ear.

"I want this," she breathed. "But I'm afraid."

"What are you afraid of," he whispered. He pressed his lips softly against the line of her jaw.

"It's going to hurt," she whispered.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I swear I'm going to be so gentle, though."

"Are you still," she sipped in a long breath, "if we do this, when we wake up tomorrow, will you..."

He tried to pull back, to look at her, but she pulled him back down to her shoulder. He pushed himself back up and forced her gaze to his.

"Do you think this would make me love you any less?" he demanded, his mouth twitching softly into a smile. Then his mouth dropped and he looked at her. "Do you really want this?"

"Yeah," she whispered, stroking her fingertips down his cheek. "But I don't want this to change us."

"Nan, it's all right," he whispered. "Just relax."

"Love me," she whispered.

--

When she woke the next morning she stretched luxuriously and realized that she was alone in bed, naked, and someone was knocking on her door.

She grabbed a robe off the back of a chair and slipped it on. She remembered Ned waking her up when it was still dark and not the fading blue outside, laughing at something he'd done, his arms tangled around her. He'd told her something, but it was gone. As was he.

The knock sounded louder. "Nan?" George called.

Nancy pushed her hair out of her face and opened the door. George was standing there, jogging in place.

"Already woke up Bess?"

"Yeah, she threw a pillow at me." George grinned. "Up for a jog? Maybe we can go wake Nickerson... is he even back yet?"

"He's back." Nancy looked around her room. Her clothes were still in their tangle by the edge of the bed, but his were gone. She stood aside and gestured for George to follow her. "Give me a sec, I'll get dressed."

Nancy grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of loose black shorts and took them into the bathroom. When she dropped the robe she could still smell his scent on her skin. She was pulling her sports bra over her head when George called, "Want me to wake up Ned while you're getting dressed?"

Nancy smiled to herself slightly. "Nah," she said. "Let him sleep. He probably needs it after practice last night."

George set the pace and Nancy tried to keep at her side, wincing at the soreness of her inner thighs. "How'd you know he was back?" George asked. "Did he come by last night?"

"Yeah," Nancy admitted. She wiped a stray strand of hair off her sweaty forehead. "He ended up staying in my room last night."

"So you've already had a workout," George winked.

Nancy nodded, her lungs burning, straining for air. "Are my thighs gonna hurt like this after every time we have sex?"

George stumbled on a tree root but recovered her balance gracefully, all the while her eyes wide and staring at her friend. "You two had sex last night?"

"Yeah." George's pace slackened even more, and Nancy took advantage of it gratefully, her cheeks stained with exertion. "Twice."

George shook her head. "Was this--I mean, I know I'm out of the loop, but..."

"You're not that far out of it," Nancy replied. "You're even more in it right now than Bess is."

"You haven't told Bess yet?"

"Well, you kind of woke me up before I had a chance to send up some smoke signals," Nancy replied, laughing.

"That was the first time? How was it?" George shook her head. "Don't mind me, it's been a while."

"It's all right," Nancy waved her off. "It was good, he was good, the second time was better... if I'd known that was going to happen I definitely would have worn something sexier than a tank top and shorts."

"Sounds like you got him anyway," George laughed.

They made the circuit of the woods and doubled back to Nancy's cabin. She woke her campers for breakfast and walked into her room to grab a jacket.

The comforter had been thrown back over her bed in some semblance of order, and she saw two orange flowers on top. Ned had left a note on ragged-edged lined notebook paper in his slanting hand, telling her that he loved her. He himself was gone.

"He left you those?" George asked from the doorway.

Nancy nodded and touched one skin-soft petal gently. "He loves me," she whispered.

--

George and Bess were seated across the table from them. George was having trouble keeping a straight face.

Nancy put her tray down on the table. Glass of orange juice, indeterminate bread in a peeling paper cup, and an apple. She leaned over and stroked her hand over Ned's head, and when he turned to look up at her, his gaze soft, she put her mouth against his ear and whispered "Love you too."

He traced his fingertips over her arm and against her knuckles before she pulled away. "Morning," he said, his voice low and soft. His hair and skin were gleaming from a recent shower, as were hers; she'd barely had enough time to run a comb through her wet hair before she had run down to the cafeteria to meet them for breakfast.

Bess was giving George a surly raised eyebrow. "I should punch you for waking me up that early," she said. "When have I _ever_ wanted to go running at five o'clock in the morning?"

"It's a gorgeous day," George replied. "Maybe we should try something new." She darted a loaded glance at Nancy, who coughed to hide the bubble of laughter in her throat.

Ned leaned over to her easily. "You told her, didn't you," he said, but his voice wasn't angry.

Nancy tried to give him a pleading expression as Bess grumbled, "And stop whispering, you two. Unless you're making plans for this weekend. I would love to get out of this place for a little while."

Ned's fingers folded around hers under the table, and she shot him a grateful look.

--

"So what exactly happened?" Nancy asked. She wrung out her hair, which dripped craters into the dirt.

Bess rolled her eyes and sighed. "Carissa started dating Reese."

Nancy choked back a laugh. "By 'dating' you mean they're going to the dance together."

Bess nodded, twisting the hem of her shirt between her hands, and it dripped onto the ground as well. "But Tiffany, who was in your boat, used to date Reese..."

"And that is why we're dripping wet right now," Nancy finished, sighing.

Nancy had thought it would be fun to take the girls out on one of the sailboats, but she hadn't known about the drama going on between their campers when she'd steered her boat over to Bess's to say hi. Before she could so much as get a word out, she'd been splashed in the face by an errant wave of lakewater. She and Bess were heading to the showers before dinner. Either that, or go looking like creatures from the black lagoon.

"So, Ned's back," Bess idly commented.

"Yeah," Nancy replied, looking down at the ground.

"Is he going to be here for the dance?" Bess asked.

Nancy nodded. "He's not going for training again until after I'm gone."

"Must be nice," Bess said.

Nancy looked over at Bess. "Something happened," she began.

Ten minutes later she and Bess were in adjacent shower stalls. Bess was still in shock. "Last night?" she asked again.

"Yes," Nancy called over the water as she shampooed her hair a second time. She closed her eyes.

"Why last night, though?" Bess asked wonderingly. "It's really sucky timing, since you're only going to be around two more weeks."

"What, you think we should have decided to do it at the beginning of the summer?"

"Was it a decision, or did it just happen?" Bess asked.

Nancy considered. "Both," she called back. "It was entirely unexpected."

Bess snapped her shower off, and Nancy did the same a minute later. Bess was smiling when Nancy emerged from the stall, wrapped in a towel. "I was going to ask if you wanted to go into town for a movie tonight, but I'm betting you have other plans."

"Can I take a raincheck?" Nancy asked, and Bess laughed.

--

After dinner Ned wasn't in his room or in the cabin with the guys, or in the cafeteria grabbing a packet of crackers to tide him over until breakfast, or at the vending machines, or in the main office on duty. Nancy circled back to her room to make sure he wasn't there either, but her fan was still in the window and Ned wasn't hiding in the shadows.

When she came down to the edge of the lake, the boats she and Bess had been in earlier were pulled up onto the beach. She could hear the faint noises of someone in one of them.

"Ned?" she called out.

The noise ceased, and a minute later he called out, "In here."

She walked over to him and rested her forearms on the edge of the boat. "I was looking for you."

He smiled. "I had to do this or else I'm going to be spending all day tomorrow repainting these, and I really don't want to have to do that."

"I'm sorry," she said. "We took some of the girls out in the boats today and they decided to have a water fight. They should be the ones out here cleaning up."

Ned stretched his arms up, arching his back, closing his eyes. He was shirtless. Nancy's mouth went dry at the sight of him. "I'm almost done," he said.

"Okay," Nancy managed. "Want to... hang out, after?"

Ned smiled at her. "What did you have in mind?"

They walked back hand in hand, the faintest smile on her face, the widest grin on his. He reached over and slung his arm around her waist, drawing her in close to him, and she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Do you mind if we go to my room?" he asked. "I need to get cleaned up."

"Sure," she told him, tilting her head up to look at him. He reached down and kissed her softly.

When they came back to his room he shut himself in the bathroom. She could hear the sink running as she walked around, touching things with the tips of her fingers. His bed was made, unevenly; he hadn't slept here since he'd left for practice. He opened his bathroom door, freshly shaved and smiling.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied, stepping in close to him. He kissed her, his hands sliding under the hem of her shirt.

"You're still on the pill, right?" he managed once they parted and gasped for breath.

"Of course," she said, sliding her fingertips down his cheek. "I was even on it very early this morning."

"Good."

He tilted his face down to hers and kissed her, and she returned it softly, her heart pounding against his chest.

"Love you," she breathed.

"Love you," he replied.

--

"You know you're my husband now, right?" she murmured to him.

He had just pulled on a dirt-streaked t-shirt. In the gasping heat of late afternoon the female campers were peering at the hay bale set in the shade of one of the pine trees, taking turns aiming at it. Ned was taking a break while he had his campers bailing out of a controlled exercise. He'd put his shirt back on, which had caused a disappointed pang in Nancy's stomach. He looked very, very good with his shirt off.

A lightning grin crossed his tanned face. Nancy's arms were crossed over her chest, but a smile played at her lips. The dread at how fast their time together was passing was a distant memory at the euphoria she felt in his presence. "Yeah, but that means you're my wife," he said. "Biblically. Which means I'll be expecting a lot more sandwiches."

"You're a bottomless pit," she said, smacking his abs playfully. They were hard under her touch. She slipped her fingers between his and squeezed, trying to keep her mind on how Tammy was aiming.

"Yeah, well, you're no slouch either." He stroked his thumb slowly up the side of her hand, then leaned in close to her. "How many times last night?" he breathed against her ear.

She shivered, blushing faintly. "Oh like you didn't want it."

--

The following night they were in his room, sleeping naked, when a cry woke Ned. He looked around, disoriented, and a knock sounded from his door.

"Nan," he mumbled, shaking her shoulder gently. "Nan."

"Mmm," she replied, her brow furrowing. "What."

"Get in my closet," he said, as the knock became more frantic.

Her eyes opened wide, as she realized what he had said. She pulled on one of his shirts and scrambled over him, closing the closet door quietly behind her.

Ned jammed his legs into a pair of shorts and grabbed her underthings, shoving them under the blanket before he opened the door. "What's up?"

When Ned left his room he shut the door behind him, and Nancy took the opportunity to peer out, listening carefully. She was in her underthings, but nothing else, when Ned rushed back into the room.

"Cell phone," he grunted, and Nancy reached onto his desk and found it.

"What's up?" she asked quietly.

"I think he's having an asthma attack," Ned said. "I'm gonna call an ambulance. I'm sorry."

"It's okay." She kissed his cheek. "I'll see you later, all right?"

He smiled at her, phone to his ear. "Love you," he mouthed to her, wrapping an arm around her and holding her briefly, before releasing her.

She stole one of his towels and a wrapped bar of soap, walked to the bathhouse between their cabins, twisted her hair up and took a quick shower. In the dripping quiet afterward she wrapped herself in his towel and felt calm, even when the ambulance screamed just outside the cabin. She slipped into her shoes and walked back to her cabin, and had just finished dressing when the sun slipped into brilliant glory over the horizon.

--

It was the first night they had slept together without anything more happening. She had complained of an upset stomach just after dinner, but when he had followed her back to her room in the moonlight, she hadn't protested.

She had a hand flung over her eyes and had kicked all the sheets off, leaving her long legs gleaming next to his. She looked beautiful and she had stopped cringing every time he moved, shifting his weight on the bed.

He wished, for a fleeting moment, for their bed in the blue bedroom in Hannah's house, but even more than that, for a place they wouldn't be interrupted or overheard or watched. He would buy her a home, the most beautiful house, but there was no time, not now. Not in the few days left before they parted.

He'd never meant for this to happen, but now that it had, he didn't want to let her go. More than the sex, more than her breathing beside him in the narrow twin bed. If he hadn't signed that contract, he could have found a way to go with her, somehow, a way to make this tolerable. But he hadn't and it was too late.

She groaned beside him, her face drawing up.

"You okay? Want me to get you a washcloth or anything?"

She took her arm off her eyes and slipped her hand down to rest lightly against her stomach. "No," she managed. "Soda," she amended.

"I'll go get a can. Do you care what kind?"

"Dark," she murmured, drawing her legs up slightly, turning her face to his as he found his jeans. They had both stripped down to their underwear and gotten into bed, but he hadn't even asked if she wanted to try anything. Especially not with that look on her face.

"I'll be right back."

She attempted a smile up at him, her eyes closed, but when he turned back upon reaching the door her smile had dropped and she had a furrowed, almost concentrating look on her face.

--

"Ned."

He was on the floor, in a nest of her spare blankets, head cradled in his bent elbow. He tilted his head back to look at her.

"Nan?"

She raked her hair back from her face and murmured a soft reply. His heart clenched at the familiarity of the gesture, at remembering seeing it that night.

"Feeling any better?"

She moved her legs under the covers. "A little," she murmured. Her shirt had ridden up and she stroked the visible swath of skin over her abs gently. "I'm sorry," she said, closing her eyes. "You probably wanted..." She trailed off and made a soft expansive gesture.

Ned rolled onto his stomach and propped his head up on his folded arms. "Just because I've wanted it the entire last week," he teased her, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

"You're on the floor," she said softly, putting her arm back over her eyes.

"I thought you were hot enough without me being all over you," he said.

"Thanks for staying," she whispered. "You could have gone back to your room."

He reached out and ran his finger over the hand she had dangling over the side of the bed, and she flexed her fingers. "Anytime," he replied.

--

She was back at the archery field the next day, and he was out on the sailboats, watching her, the sun prickling on his scalp. Her hair was lighter, her tan deep, her teeth gleaming during her lightning-quick smiles. She had even recovered enough to join him on his morning jog.

A quiet brunette at least five years his junior had been making eyes at him during every sailing lesson he'd given, and the closer the end-of-session (and, in their case, end of the summer) dance had come, the more distracted she had seemed. She had even gone so far as to enlist her redheaded friend to approach Ned and make sure he'd be at the dance, but had made no further advances.

George was taking a fellow counselor to the dance ("Jason and I are just friends, this will be fun," was her refrain, despite Bess's teasing) and Bess had been determined to go stag before a mild bout of pleading from George led her to take Jason's cousin. The three couples were going into town for dinner before the dance.

Nancy's cabin was a flurry of activity. Girls in curlers, toothbrushes hanging out of their mouths, shouting about a lack of eyeliner or insufficient blush. Nancy herself was expertly applying lip liner to a girl in a black tube top and cutoff white jean shorts.

"Good?" she asked, as she capped the pencil.

The girl whipped a mirror in front of her face, scrutinized her lips, then smiled. "Yes. Thanks."

Nancy looked over at the center of hush Ned's presence had created. "Just a minute," she said, and her smile was meant for his eyes alone.

She came out half an hour later in a draped sparkling tank top he had never seen before, its scoop neck tracing a curve from her collarbone all the way down to the shadow of her cleavage. It hugged her curves, stretched taut over her flat stomach, and still managed to reveal an inch of flesh just above her skirt, showing her navel. A silver chain belt looped loosely around her slender waist, over a soft black flared cotton skirt that ended just below her knees. She wore strappy black sandals, smoky grey eyeshadow with the barest hint of color on her lips and cheeks, and her hair was a soft tousled mane down her nearly bare back.

He was wearing a muted green polo shirt layered over a white t-shirt, camel-colored khakis and thick brown shoes. She took him in and met his liquid brown eyes, her own darkly lined and sparkling.

"You wouldn't think less of me if I suggested we skip out tonight, would you?" he asked, his fingertips resting just on the bare skin of her back as he leaned toward her and brushed his lips over hers.

"No," she replied, reaching up to cup his cheek. "You look nice, too."

Resisting the urge to show up late, Nancy and Ned arrived at the steakhouse only a few minutes after Bess, George, and their dates. Between courses and drinks, Ned let his hand rest on her back.

When they came back to the camp, the talent show had just started. A trio of girls were lip-synching into hairbrushes when Ned felt a light tap on the arm that wasn't around Nancy, and a note was pushed between his fingers.

Samantha was asking for a dance.

Ned nudged Nancy and showed her the note, and she gave him a bemused look, reaching over to stroke the back of his neck. "Just save a few for me."

--

The look on Samantha's face was priceless when Ned came into the mess hall, the tables and chairs stowed away or against the walls to allow for dance space, and locked eyes with her. She blushed faintly, shrugging off a dark blue cardigan to reveal a powder-blue sundress that fell just to her knees.

"Be right back," Ned murmured to his fiancée, then walked over to offer Samantha his hand.

Bess sent her date to get them all some glasses of punch. "He's a sweetheart, isn't he."

Ned joined their hands, his other shifting lower to rest a comfortable distance between her shoulder and waist, as he danced with the younger girl.

"Yeah, he is," Nancy replied. With an effort she turned her eyes away. "How's your date?"

Bess shrugged. "Fun," she said, but didn't elaborate, so he wouldn't be asked for a second. "I actually kind of feel sad. The end of the summer."

"Yeah," Nancy said softly. "The end."

When Ned returned to Nancy, Samantha was glowing, whispering excitedly to her friends. "I think you made an impression," Nancy murmured, grinning.

"I do have that effect on people," Ned replied, keeping his mouth straight with a valiant effort. He reached out and took Nancy into his arms. "Now dance, senorita."

For the rest of the night they only had eyes for each other. Nancy clasped her hands behind his neck and he kept his hands resting at the small of her back as they swayed with the same slow rock to the music, despite any quickening of rhythm or beat. Occasionally she would raise her head, peer at him from beneath her darkened lashes, then give him one of her lightning-quick smiles. He ran his hand over the silk tangle of her hair.

"How long do we have to put in an appearance, again?"

"We could slip out for some air," she said. "If air is what you want."

Ned looked down for so long, smiling faintly, that Nancy finally hooked an index finger under his chin and tilted his face up until she could look into it. "I actually booked us a hotel room tonight."

Her mouth formed a perfect o of surprise. "You--tonight?"

"I wanted it to be special," he said.

She gazed at him wonderingly, then reached up and dashed a pair of tears from her eyes before they could ruin her mascara. "When did you want to leave?" she asked.

"As soon as you did."

--

She was crowing up into the night sky.

He drove her Mustang with the top down, the overnight bag she'd hastily packed in the backseat, her hair whipping around her face. She tilted her head back and laughed.

"You feeling okay?"

"Great," she replied, letting her fingers slip clumsily in the currents running along the sides of her car.

He parked her car around back, locked it securely with the top and windows up, then took her hand and walked her to the side door. They giggled in the corridors, and she took in the scent of it, dry and cool and sterile.

When they reached the door he stuck the keycard in the slot, but didn't withdraw it. "Nan..."

She looked up at him, the bag dangling from her right hand. "Is the key not working?"

"I just..." He reached over and lifted her into his arms, and she stifled a giggle with their faces inches apart.

"You're my wife now, right?"

She locked her eyes on his, then nodded slowly, taking her face in his hands. She leaned forward and kissed him gently. "I'm yours."

"I love you," he whispered.

He could see her teeth gleam in her answering smile. "I know at least part of you does."

"All of me," he said. "You know that, don't you? I don't love you just because you let me do this..."

"I know," she said. "And I don't let you do it. I want you to. I've wanted you to for so damn long."

--

They had an entire bed to themselves, big enough for at least two other people, but she still found herself gravitating to him. She turned in a restless attempt to get comfortable and sleep, and he followed her, draping his arm over her, his hand resting on her bare stomach, his chest to her back. She laced her fingers between his.

"Nan," he whispered.

She turned over, searching for his eyes. "Hey," she whispered.

"Tell me you love me."

"You know I do," she whispered, putting her arm around him and drawing herself close. "I love you so much."

"Promise me you won't leave. Not now." He rested a hand against her cheek.

"I won't leave you," she murmured. "Not ever, not ever again. Ned, you're asleep, it's okay... remember, I told you, you're mine. My husband. Mine."

"You can't, you can't leave," he whispered, and her lips were trembling. "Don't say this was nothing, don't say it meant nothing..."

"You mean everything to me," she said, heavily. "Everything. I love you, I promise I love you, I'm going to love you forever, Ned Nickerson."

She had thought he was just talking in his sleep, and maybe he was, but after that they made love.

"I love you," she breathed into his ear, his cheek nestled against her jaw, one hand buried in her hair, and he took a long shaking breath. She relaxed her grip on his back and he rolled over with her, one of her legs still slung over his waist, holding her to his chest. "Don't ever leave," he whispered, his breathing still ragged.

"I'll never leave you."


	3. Chapter 3

"Nancy."

She looked up from her sandwich. Her father was looking at her. Iris was making noise in the kitchen.

"So when are we going to see you again?"

Nancy counted off on her fingers. "Well, I'm going to the mall with Ned for a while, and I'll be back for dinner, but Bess wanted me to go see her tonight. And then tomorrow night I'm going to hang out with her and George. But I'll get back early and we can have breakfast before we go to the airport."

"Maybe you and I could have lunch tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan." Nancy glanced at her watch. "Oh man."

Ned's car was parked in the driveway. He was leaning against it, arms crossed, sunglasses and tight jeans, waiting for her. She drank in the sight of him, tugging her purse up onto her shoulder.

"You ready?" A small smile was playing over his lips.

"You bet."

Once they were on the way she put her elbow against the car door and tilted her head against it, staring at him. He glanced over at her. "What?"

"You look..."

He grinned. "Yeah, I know."

She touched his hand and he laced his fingers between hers. "So you need what?" he asked.

"A few shirts."

"Did your dad say it was all right for you to stay over at Bess's tonight?"

She shot a sideways look at him, grinning. "Took everything you had to keep from asking until now, didn't it."

"Well did he?" Ned asked all in one breath, his lips trembling slightly into a smile.

"Of course," Nancy admitted, allowing herself a grin. "Now help me find shirts."

Even though there was no way the two of them could get away until later, she could sense his frustration and impatience because it was her own. She came out of the dressing room in layered tank tops and crewnecks, holding her hair up in a messy ponytail, twirling for him, but his response was always the same. She looked great in anything, and she could see the same expression in his eyes that she felt in her own. She kept staring at him like she was never going to see him again.

"You get a free perfume with purchase."

With an effort Nancy pulled her gaze from Ned's and tried to focus on what the cashier was saying. Another minute and she would have been in his arms, close enough to feel his breath. Ned made some soft noise, his gaze falling down to the floor.

"Sure," Nancy replied, distracted.

"Which one?"

She glanced between the three, her finger settling on the one in caramel-colored smoked glass. "This one."

"Don't you want to try it?"

She could feel Ned's fingertips resting above her skin before he looped his arm around her back and rested his hand against the thin fabric over her hip. Her heart was pounding as she sprayed her wrist, touched it to the other, and then lifted one for Ned's inspection. She turned her head and their gazes were locked again.

"Sure," he said. "Whatever you want."

She couldn't stop staring at his mouth. He pressed his thumb against her slightly parted lips, then trailed his fingertips down the side of her face.

"Okay, autumn," the cashier said, tossing a slender white box into Nancy's bag. "Here's your total."

They walked out with their arms around each other's waists, Nancy's fingers idly trailing down the sleeves of dark-brown leather coats. "Remember that leather jacket you had when we first started dating, and you let me have it all the time..."

Ned dipped his head in acknowledgement. "And then my mom gave it away because she knew it didn't fit me anymore."

"Do you still have those notes I used to write for you and leave in the pockets?"

"Of course," he said softly. He reached over and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Think your dad would mind if I took you for an Orange Julius before I brought you back?"

"Nah," she said, tilting her face back for a kiss.

--

Bess lifted the remote and the credits blinked into a dark screen. "Nine-fifty-five," she said, looking at the clock beside her bed. "Close enough for you?"

Nancy could actually feel butterflies in her stomach as she released the pillow she had been holding to her chest and gave Bess a nervous smile. "You sure you're okay with this?"

Bess forced an answering grin. "As long as we actually do see you tomorrow night. We'll braid each other's hair and go through Cosmo and paint our toenails and..."

"Act like girls again?"

Bess nodded. "Have a good time tonight, Nan."

"Only if you're okay with me leaving."

"Go," Bess said, making a shooing motion. "Just sitting in the same room with you is even making _me_ nervous."

Ned's car was idling halfway down the block. His face was half in shadow from a nearby streetlight, and he was drumming his fingertips impatiently on the gearshift. Nancy shifted her bag off one shoulder and knocked on the passenger window.

He started just the slightest bit before reaching over to let her in, a wide uncontrollable grin on his face. "Hey," he said. His voice was low. He smelled of soap and spicy aftershave, and his gaze was magnetic.

"Hey," she said. "You owe Bess dinner."

His lips quirked slightly but he didn't take his eyes off her face. "It's worth it," he said softly.

She rolled down her window once they were on the way. The night was impossibly dark and oppressively hot, with the smell of charcoal still smoldering in the air. He negotiated the turns with the ease of a sleepwalker. She watched his ringless fingers trace the edge of the steering wheel, the force of his whiteknuckled grip.

She was speechless with his fingers laced between hers.

"Bess wasn't too mad, was she?" He darted her a sideways glance.

"No, no," Nancy managed to say, her index finger sliding over his palm. "I'll see her tomorrow night. It'll be all right."

"And you're sure you still want to-- hang out with me tonight?"

She caught the bare hesitation. "I'm sure," she said.

--

In the still breathed silence of their blue bedroom, later and then much later, she lay in his arms and listened to his breath. They had the whole house to themselves but they still tread quiet on creaking stairs, still spoke in hushed voices like living phantoms afraid to disturb the dead. But for this, but for the quiet seal of their cooling flesh, they could be in any other night. He pressed his unpursed lips to her forehead in a kiss.

"Good?" she whispered.

"Yes," he replied, low and without hesitation or nervousness.

Her lace and silk still lay undisturbed in her bag. He had no use for it. He had seen the old faded bra and cotton washed to softness and warmed by her skin, and he had taken her to their bed with the single question in his eyes, the need for her permission and desire. Their clothes were in a haphazard tangle by the door. The shades were drawn tight.

For two weeks they had been lovers. Just two weeks. She was naked and unashamed against him. His eyelashes fluttered against their cheeks. She reached up and rested a palm against his face.

"I was so afraid of this," she whispered. "But it feels right."

He nodded, his fingers trailing in a soft curve over her forearm as he kissed her mouth. "It is right," he said, his breath hot against her lips. "We were meant for each other, Nan."

"Do you really believe that?" she whispered.

He nodded again, brushing her hair back out of her face. "Of course," he said. "You've always been the only one I wanted."

Her heart swelled painfully in her chest. "Yeah," she murmured, tears rising in her eyes. "I've never met anyone like you. I never will again. You're my best friend."

"And you're mine." He rested his lips against her cheek. "I've never loved anyone the way I love you."

"Me either. I'm going to love you until the day I die."

"Shh," he said, stilling her mouth with another kiss.

--

Ned had volunteered to take Nancy to the airport. Nancy had breakfast with her father before she finished the last of her packing and stood in her bedroom, looking around. It already felt deserted. Her heart was swollen and sick in her chest.

He helped her load her car. They didn't speak on the way to the airport. She didn't trust herself not to cry.

"So, we're here."

"Yeah." She sighed heavily.

He reached for her, and they kissed deeply. He rested his palm against her cheek, then trailed his fingers down the side of her neck. She reached for him.

"I love you," she gasped, reaching up to wipe a single tear from her cheek.

"You know I love you." He tilted his head back and brought her face to his to claim a kiss from her trembling lips. "We're fine. We're okay. And you'll be back in December and we'll be together every second of every day. You'll get sick of me, you'll see me so much." He pushed a lock of hair off her forehead, and she managed a soft smile.

"You'll be my husband again."

"I still am."

"We aren't." Her voice was no louder than a sigh. "Not yet."

"At least I got one ring on your finger first." He touched the diamond. "We're okay."

She looked up, met his eyes, and nodded, blushing faintly. "We're great."

They climbed out of the car, and when he opened the trunk to grab her bags, she stopped him and dug inside her duffel for a second. She withdrew the perfume sample and sprayed herself thoroughly. She caught his questioning look and smiled, her eyes still faintly wet.

"I can't smell like you when Dad's hugging me goodbye."

"Well, it would definitely make things a bit more awkward around here." He slipped an arm around her waist. "Give me a little bit of that."

She kissed the angle of his jaw, then sprayed his chest before putting the bottle back into her bag. She took a deep breath. "Okay," she said.

"Okay."

They went through the excessive line to check in, she collected her ticket, and they walked to the stairs, to where Bess and George were waiting. Even though they had spent the night talking for hours, Bess still hugged Nancy as though she hadn't seen her in days.

"You're going to keep in touch, right?" Bess's eyes were shining.

"You know I will." Nancy fought down a sob.

George hugged her next. "And don't forget me either."

"Never," Nancy said, smiling.

Ned swept her up off the ground and into his arms. "I'm gonna miss you, Drew."

"You'd better." Her lips were shaking. "You'd better miss me so much."

"Kiss me."

She pressed her mouth to his obediently. "Tell me not to go and I won't," she whispered just loud enough for him to hear.

He closed his eyes, his grip on her tightening. "Don't do this," he begged her.

"Do you want me to go?"

He trained his gaze on her, his eyes damp. "I don't want you to go, but you have to," he said. He managed a small smile. "You're going to have a great time. Watch me on satellite and I'll blow you a kiss before every game I play."

She gave him a sad smile. "How did we get into this," she said. "How am I going to live, not seeing you for months..."

"You will," he said. "It'll be all right."

She tilted her face up to his and kissed him. They were still kissing when Carson approached them.

"Ned's a little big for a carry-on, Nan," Carson said, smiling.

Ned reluctantly released his fiancée and she walked over to her father to give him a hug. "Hey Dad," she said. "I'm gonna miss you."

"I'm gonna miss you too, baby."

Ned pulled her aside again just before she went up the escalator to pass through security. "I left you something," he said. "Some music."

She looked up into his eyes and had to bite her lip. "I love you, you know that?" she said, her voice soft and deep.

"I love you," he said, and he brushed his lips over hers. "Come back to me."

"I will." She searched his eyes and found them growing damp as hers. She reached up, her fingers in his hair, drew his face down and kissed him hard.

When she pulled away he looked down and swiped at his cheek absently with one hand. "Go ahead," he whispered roughly.

She ran her fingers through his thick hair and smiled. "Love you."

"Love you too." He sniffed, then looked at her. His eyes were definitely wet now.

Twin tears slipped down her cheeks. "I'll see you soon."

He dipped his head in silent affirmation.

--

The fasten seat belt light blinked out with a soft chime and Nancy wiped her eyes discreetly. Then she reached into her bag and found what he'd given her, the music with his name on it.

She listened to the songs he had picked out for her over and over as the airplane crossed land and sea, through the in-flight movies and prepackaged food and soft drowse of the other passengers. She listened and cried, wiping her eyes on the cuffs of her sweater, catching the soft smell of the perfume she had sprayed on them both and remembering making love to him.

She went to the bathroom several times during the flight, each time convinced that she would find blood on the tissue with the start of her period. But she never did.

--

One bus went to the university. Nancy climbed on board with her bookbag and her oversized duffel, while the driver wrestled her larger rolling suitcase into the luggage compartment of the bus. She could feel a thin cold layer of sweat on her back.

She wasn't bleeding. She wasn't, and she should have been, with the birth control pills she had been taking faithfully every day.

The bus swerved down a hill, suspension squeaking rustily, and Nancy held a hand to her perspiring forehead, taking quick shallow breaths. She hadn't been able to think about anything else, not even while she mentally translated and answered the immigration officer, had her passport stamped, spoke with quiet firm assurance about her student accommodations and her means of support while she would be staying in Spain.

But she was only a few hours late. In all honesty, that was all it was. Stress didn't help. It was her nerves and stress and leaving Ned and everything, and it would be all right even if she did completely skip her period. Everything would be fine.

The campus was beautiful. Lush green, towering trees, pale stone buildings and college students who looked remarkably like the ones back home. The driver stopped near an imposing glass and concrete monstrosity and helped her with her rolling suitcase. She flashed him a wide grateful smile as she adjusted the backpack on her back and headed inside.

"Miss Drew," said the slender, dark-haired woman at the desk. "We've been expecting you. You must be ready to get out of this heat. I have your room keys right here if you'd like to come with me...?"

"Sure," Nancy said, brushing a few loose wisps of hair off her forehead before she picked up her suitcase again.

She was going to be alone in a suite with two other girls, in accommodations right off campus. A moderately-sized apartment with her own bedroom, painted a moss green with the floor done in glazed tile, a window overlooking campus and wrought iron bars on the windows.

"It's perfect," Nancy sighed.

Once the woman had given her a brief tour of the apartment and had left her with a set of keys, Nancy put her suitcase on the bed and opened it, then stood for a moment quietly, listening. She took off her shoes and socks and tiptoed out to the doorway and stayed motionless for a second, then crossed the scarred and glossed hardwood floor to the old and overstuffed green couch in the middle of the floor. A cheap plastic telephone stood on the end table with a laminated dialing guide in both Spanish and English underneath. Nancy traced her fingertip down until she reached the proper country code. Then she lifted the receiver to her ear and cradled it on her shoulder, her lips trembling for a moment before she dialed.

His voicemail was going to pick up, she just knew it. A small tear formed and trembled on her lower lashes as she bit her lip.

A breathless voice answered. "Hello?"

"Ned," she replied, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice. "Hey."

"Nan," he replied. She could hear the happiness in his voice. "I miss you so much already."

"I miss you too." She reached up and dashed the tear out of her eyes. "How is everything?"

"Boring," he replied. "You must have just gotten there. How is it?"

"It's..." Nancy spread her arms and looked around the room helplessly. "It's old and hot and I have a beautiful room all to myself and I'd give it all up in a split second if you were with me."

"You'll be singing a different tune once you start classes," he predicted. "You'll fall in love with some old distinguished professor who's been shot at and lived through malaria and you'll forget all about me."

"Not a chance," Nancy said softly. "Not on your life. I have three whole days to miss you horribly before I start classes. And then I'll just miss you terribly between."

"I have three days of heavy practice. Plus a week. And I'm going to dream about you every night, I just know it, and wake up thinking you're asleep next to me."

"Just as long as no one else is there."

"No one else will be," he told her, his voice low and deep. "Nan, I love you so much."

"I love you too," she murmured. She choked back a sudden sob that rose in her chest. "I love you and I wish you were here right now."

"I do too," he said. "The heat here is insane."

Nancy looked over the back of the couch and out the window. "It's almost time to go to sleep," she said. "I don't want to let you go."

"I wish you didn't have to."

"I love you, Ned," she said. "I'll call you tomorrow."

"You know you can call me whenever," he said. "Whenever you have a spare second you know I'd love to hear your voice."

"I'd love to hear yours," she said. "God, I wish, I wish so much, that you could be here with me."

"It'll be all right," he murmured. "It will be okay. Before you know it you'll be back here again."

She sipped in a breath carefully, willing the stinging heat in her eyes to stay there. "Love you," she said again.

"Love you too," he said. "Good night, Nan."

"Goodnight."

She had barely replaced the receiver before she forced herself to dial her home number instead of dissolving into sobs.

"Hello?"

"Hi Dad." Just at the sound of his voice, she felt calmer, more composed. "I made it here in one piece."

"How's your room?"

"It's nice," she said. "I'm using the only phone we have in here. It's in the living room and I'll be living with two other girls, so I just hope they don't monopolize the phone. I'm already planning on doing that."

"Called Ned yet?"

"About to," Nancy said with her eyes closed. "So what are your plans?"

"The usual," Carson said. "Trials and traffic tickets and indulging my only child with whatever she asks for. Do you have everything you need?"

"I'll know in a few days," Nancy said. "But I'll be all right. I'm really jet-lagged, Dad, so would you mind if I went ahead to bed and called you back tomorrow, when I feel close to human?"

"Go ahead," Carson replied. "I'll be around. Love you."

"Love you too."

Nancy didn't want to do it, but she slowly unpacked her toiletries and took a brief shower. As she washed Ned's scent off her skin she traced her finger over the porcelain soap dish, out of which a slight triangular piece had been chipped out. She braced herself on her palms, closed her eyes and let herself cry under the steaming water, until she felt weak and tired and waterlogged. Afterward she crept out, wrapped herself in a towel and fell asleep on her empty narrow bed.

--

On the first day of classes she woke with a pair of white earphone cords tangled around her neck.

The overhead light was still on, but its illumination was muted by the sunlight streaming through the barred window. She hadn't even pulled back the covers, but had fallen asleep in a white tank top and bright blue sweatpants, the elastic waist low beneath her belly. She kicked her stockinged feet as she reached up to gently untangle the cords, and heard the soft impact of a stack of t-shirts falling to the gleaming wooden floor.

Her music player was drained. She had fallen asleep listening to Ned's songs again.

Her stomach lurched and she lifted herself shakily to half-sitting, then pushed herself the rest of the way up. Her fist closed around the headphone cords and she yanked them away from her neck. She could feel her throat closing at the faint lines of pressure, and when the weight was removed her breath was still in the soft panting labor, shallow to keep her from throwing up. Beads of perspiration formed on her forehead, and she placed a single hesitant toe on the shag rug next to her bed, then rested her weight there.

The bathroom was all rose and white plastic, but at least it was hers alone, without fear of interruption or pity. She retched and shed a few bitter, hated tears as she knelt over the commode, then cupped her hands, filled them with water and sipped to dispel the taste of acid.

--

An ocean away from her, Ned woke at that same moment, to find a warm body in the bed next to him.

One o'clock in the morning. The red numbers burned his eyes, and he closed them, rubbed his forehead, pulled the sheet up in a sweep of his hand and felt the warm resistance of slightly damp and hairless skin, that wasn't his own.

Wordlessly he sat up. Nothing intelligible could escape his constricting throat. A tangle of glossy brown hair was on the pillow next to his. The minibar was open and its dim light showed tanned flesh, the soft dark hollow of a mouth and pale gleaming nails.

Sheri. That was her name, Sheri-with-an-i, she had been at the party after practice and he'd been telling her how much he missed Nancy and they had all been doing shots and he had been lonely and she'd followed him up to his room and the television had blared and there had been at least four people all tangled up on the couch and she'd said something about missing her boyfriend even though Ned knew for a fact the guy she said she missed so much was downstairs taking shots off a dizzy blonde girl's washboard abs, and he'd lain down irritable, his head pounding and lurching with each breath he took and he'd felt the scrape of her nails on her forehead as she'd made some bleary comment about, something, something, he had lost it then.

He climbed to his feet and walked very very carefully to the bathroom, but he smacked his shins hard on a low cheap dark-wood coffee table anyway. The coffee table was pushed at an angle against the wall. A plastic Twister map, wrinkled and creased, was spread haphazardly in the middle of the floor. The minibar's cooling engine sounded with an ominous growling rumble and Ned closed it with the sweep of one bare foot. Empty glass bottles muted their jingling with the soft gasping seal of the door.

The bathroom was just ahead. He flipped on the switch before he walked in and an excessively loud and obnoxious exhaust fan rattled to life. He glanced back at the bed. Sheri made some soft groaning noise and turned away from the bathroom.

He shut the door. When he flipped the switch the noise, which was infuriating his already pounding headache, stopped, but the light turned off as well. He stopped his right ear gently with a fingertip and turned the light back on again, wincing.

All the bath sheets were in a soggy mess under the towel rack. The bathtub was full to capacity with lukewarm water, and a washcloth on the edge of the tub was steadily dripping a widening puddle onto the tile. Ned still had his shorts on. No telltale lipstick or scent of someone else on his skin.

He knew he hadn't. She must have just crept into bed with him after he'd fallen asleep. Turned off the lights and the television set and shooed everyone else out and waited for him to wake, falling asleep as she did.

An ocean away Nancy was just waking up.

Ned caught himself just in time and sank to his knees.

--

_It's something I ate, something I ate, something I ate_

She grabbed a tray and forced her stomach to steady as she stared down at her choices. Something with tomatoes. Tomatoes and maybe rice and something green on top. She drew a cup of soda and placed that on her wet tray.

Across the cafeteria were her newest acquaintances. Sonia, Cessette, Mariah. When she glanced back up there was a guy who had sat at the front of the class and volunteered a lot. Carlos something. He was smiling down at Cessette and she was gesturing widely and then Carlos was sitting down, next to the only empty seat.

They switched to English when she came to the table. Her Spanish was a little rusty, but not that rusty. She put her tray down carefully and lowered herself into her seat with the hesitancy of an alcoholic, willing her stomach to stay low in her belly.

"How long is the train ride into the city?"

Sonia shrugged, poking at her plate. She'd picked the other option, something that looked like eggplant in pale thin gravy. Nancy forced her gaze away from it. Mariah flipped her black hair over a shoulder. "It's about an hour," she said. Then she smiled, her white teeth bright in her tanned face. "The last train isn't until three a.m., either. Plenty of time to go out for a drink after."

Carlos ripped open a foil packet of cookies, and the smell was nauseating. At the same time, her stomach growled. She forced a forkful of rice to her lips. "And we're all transfers?"

When she said it she kept Carlos in the edge of her gaze, and as she watched he ducked his head. "I am actually a graduate student here," he said.

Nancy turned her head to study him. He had coal-black hair curling over his forehead, but startling ice-blue eyes. Ringless left hand and he was staring at a point just over Sonia's shoulder right before he turned that gaze on her. She felt for her own ring.

_Just something I ate_

He smiled and offered his hand. "Carlos," he said.

"Nancy," she replied.

--

He had barely unpacked, so that wasn't really a problem. He took his rolling suitcase down to the desk and asked for another room, flipped a credit card in their direction, crawled into the crisp antiseptic bed with a _do not disturb_ sign on the door.

But Ned didn't sleep. With his arms under his head he stared at the ceiling or the wall or the vague shadow of the entertainment armoire. Flipped through the hissing channels. Nothing on. Nothing for a while. When he called down to the desk, having given in unwillingly to the hunger pangs, there was no room service for another four hours. Coffee available in the room. Cheap plastic fixture nestled on his bathroom countertop. Cheap plastic, heavy and marbled and cool to the touch.

He found the extra pillows and made a lumpy dissatisfying approximation of Nancy's form under the covers beside him.

Ice machine down the hall. Black drawstring sweatpants and grey undershirt and five o'clock shadow and his bare feet sliding over the well traveled carpet. Someone was snoring loudly behind a door. He held his plastic keycard between two fingers as he filled a plastic-lined bucket with misshapen ice cubes that melted on contact with air.

His cell phone on the holster at his side.

At three o'clock the plastic cup of ice water on his nightstand had dripped a wide circle and he startled awake remembering a curtain of brown hair brushing against his bare chest. He heard the end of a word spoken in her voice and his heart clenched in his chest.

_Dream, dream, dream. Nothing. Didn't happen._

He woke up again facedown on the pillows beside him, his fingers curling against the mattress, breathing hard, breathing Nancy. She had been there, wordless soft yielding, pale and familiar beneath him, and now she was gone. He swallowed hard against his dry throat. A woman with grey-blue hair and a loud checked suit was holding a soft white bottle of lotion. Her voice was nasal and overbright. He picked up the remote and stabbed a button and she was gone.

He dipped his fingertips in the lukewarm water and drew them over his face, then lurched to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

--

Nancy was beginning to hate the smell of water.

She'd barely made it back to her room in time. Her bookbag was slung into a corner, leaning against a wall. She held her hair out of her face with one hand. Nothing had stayed down.

She lifted herself to trembling legs and washed out her mouth. The few dotted freckles stood dark against her chalk-pale cheeks. With a frustrated cry she smacked the light switch and stood in darkness. She could feel a hot line of sweat at the waistband of her shorts, and her stomach flipped again. In the pool of dim sunlight she knelt down again, retching, almost sobbing.

_Just everything I eat._

The sun broke out of the clouds and the pool was too bright to take. She shifted her weight and tilted backwards, her back against the cool tile wall, mouth open and gasping.

_Ned._

She snatched a washcloth, twisted the tap on with fumbling fingers and then ran it under the water, her eyes closed, forehead against the sharp corner of the counter. She wrung out the towel and wiped her face with it, hard, over and over, scrubbing at the thin clammy sweat.

Her shoes were lead weights on her feet. She unlaced her tennis shoes and kicked them off, still holding the rapidly warming washcloth to her face. The rest of her felt like it was freezing. She opened the door of her room just as Mina walked in, in a flash of long curly hair and a jingle of keys.

And then Nancy was no longer alone.

They nodded to each other with polite watchfulness. Mina put her purse down on and end-table and was rummaging around in the kitchen when the telephone rang.

Nancy could feel her pulse beating in the skin over her stomach as she willed her stockinged feet across the floor to the couch. Mina grabbed it first, though, her wide dark eyes looking up to find Nancy's as she spoke rapid Spanish into the phone.

Then she offered it to Nancy. "For you," in rich heavily accented tones.

"Nan?"

"Ned," she replied, pulling a blanket across her legs, her heart beating even faster. She felt lightheaded. "Hey. You just caught me."

"I'm glad," he said. "Who was that?"

"My roommate." Nancy kept her gaze on the shadow of the kitchen door. "One of them. Isn't it early for you right now?"

"I just got back from my morning run," he said. "Not that early."

Nancy closed her eyes, running the washcloth over her face again. She cleared her throat and leaned back. "I miss you," she said.

In the eternity of heartbeats before he answered, a sudden nameless dread filled her. "I miss you too," he answered, and it was gone, he was fine, everything was fine, everything would be fine. "I miss you so much. I wish I could be there with you right now, you have no idea how much."

"Practice is that bad?" She forced a smile into her voice.

"Practice is fine." He took a breath, and she listened to it, imagined his face. "It's everything else that's bad. I even had to put pillows in the bed next to me."

"I don't even try to sleep anymore," she said. "I've already gone through two sets of batteries listening to the music you gave me instead of sleeping."

"You liked it that much?"

"You knew I would, Nickerson," she said, softly, and this time there was a real smile on her lips. Faint, but there. "Why did you call?"

"Because I wanted to hear your voice," he said. "Because I wanted to lay here in bed with my eyes closed listening to your voice."

"Sorry I can't help with that. I'm on the couch in the living room."

"Not like that," he said softly. "Not for that. I love you."

"I love you too," she said. "More than anything."

"We're good, aren't we," he breathed. She could see the line of his cheek in her mind, the soft brush of his eyelashes, the curve of his lips. "We're good."

"We're great," she told him. "Say you'll never leave me."

"I will never leave you," he repeated, slow and deliberate. "I will never leave."

--

After a shower Ned headed down to the lobby and out of the hotel. He saw Sheri on the way, her boyfriend's arm heavy over her shoulders, and relaxed the slightest bit.

He went to a jewelry store downtown where he and Nancy had looked over the wedding rings. Nancy had preferred a slender band for herself with a thicker paired one for him, plain gold that matched the engagement ring he had given her.

He walked out with her ring hanging off the golden chain around his neck.

--

"Are you here for the orientation course?" the sleepy-eyed girl asked in rapid Spanish.

Nancy fought the urge to let her palm rest over the flat of her belly as she responded in the same. The lights were harsh on her eyes but at least she was here instead of cowering on her bathroom floor. Sonia had agreed to go into town with her the next day to see if they could buy cell phones, but in the meantime Nancy had decided to go down to the main computer lab and find out how to at least check her email.

The girl placed her next to a monitor with a sheet of paper taped over the screen, something angry scrawled in what looked like red crayon across it. Nancy dug out her ID cards and the proctor explained in slow, deliberate Spanish how Nancy could log on to check her email and use the school website. Once Nancy thanked her, the girl went back to her desk and propped her chin on her palm, staring with glazed sightless eyes at her computer monitor.

None of the instant messenger programs Nancy used seemed to be working, not even the applet versions. She shrugged and glanced around, sure that the proctor was still in some narcoleptic fit. A row up she saw a familiar screen, and a dark curly head facing it.

Carlos sensed her eyes on him and turned around. When he caught her gaze he gave her a slow, hesitant smile, then turned back to his machine. After a second of deliberation, Nancy locked her machine and maneuvered around the rows of students until she was at his left hand.

"Hey," she said in English, and he looked up at her with those iced blue and heavily lashed eyes. She smiled. "Could you tell me how to get onto that program?" she asked, tapping his screen.

--

Ned found an email from her that night when he logged on. She told him about the campus and the people she had met and she said no fewer than five times that she missed him terribly. She was going to take her first trip into the city the next day, and if she was able to get a cell phone she would call him with the number. That way they could talk whenever, even when her two flatmates were having a wild party or watching some dismal dark movie in guttural Spanish with no subtitles. "They have to have known each other before now," she told him. "They watch movies all the time."

He clicked reply but stared motionless at the screen with his fingertips resting lightly on the home keys, waiting.

Nothing came to him.

The fingers of his left hand started shaking. He pushed back his chair with the blank screen still standing and walked across the hall.

"Hey," Cole said when he answered the door.

"Mind if I borrow a cigarette?"

"Just don't give it back," Cole joked, reaching into his desk drawer. "Need a lighter?"

"Yeah," Ned admitted.

Cole handed over a Marlboro and a dark grey lighter. He was a dark-haired blue-eyed giant of a man, who had practically every girl Ned had met since joining the team on a string. Sheri had even made some offhand remark about him, but Ned shied away from the memory.

"How's it going?" Cole asked casually.

Ned released a brief, bitter chuckle, but smiled. "All right. Practice is tougher than I thought it would be."

Cole shrugged. "Yeah," he admitted. "It's not bad after the third or fourth season."

"Probably won't be here that long," Ned replied.

"Why not?" Cole asked, crossing his arms. "You've been doing well. Unless you're looking for another team already."

"I'm not, but we haven't even had a game yet," Ned said.

"I've seen you play, though."

"College," Ned protested. "The stakes are way higher now."

"If you're looking for an endorsement contract," Cole said. "Are you?"

"Don't think I really can," he said. "Not really. Once my fiancée graduates from college we'll be getting married, and I don't think she really wants me doing this once we're hitched."

Cole smiled. "Oh, she'd get used to it," he said. "One thing girls like to do is spend money."

Ned laughed again. "You haven't met this one," he said.

"Why hasn't she been up to see you?"

"She's actually in Spain," he said. "I just got an email from her."

"She hot?"

"Of course," Ned replied, a bit of the old cockiness coming back. "And good in bed."

"Good?" Cole replied, raising an eyebrow.

Ned smiled. "Yeah," he replied. "Thanks for the cigarette."

"Anytime," Cole said, watching as Ned walked down the hall.

Ned lit the cigarette once he reached the balcony and took a deep breath, drawing the smoke down into his lungs. He coughed slightly. The last time he'd done this he and Nancy had been in high school and they'd been having a fight about his going to college and Nancy's inability to stop investigating. They had gotten back together and soon after she had stopped smoking entirely, telling him that his kisses tasted nasty when he did, and he'd stopped as well. He'd never even bought a pack of cigarettes, and Nancy hadn't either. They'd never been addicted. But the thought of this had been too clamorous to ignore.

He closed his eyes and exhaled warmth and smoke, his forearms against the wrought iron. He felt calmer, even if it was for no reason.

Nothing had happened. Nothing had really happened.

He stood gazing with sightless eyes into the distance, the cigarette smoldering between his fingers. _If Nancy had walked in on it, if I walked in on her in bed with some naked man..._

He closed his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

"You want to meet up later?"

Sonia nodded, brushing her hair over one shoulder. "That's fine. You don't want to head back right now?"

"I have a few more things to pick up," Nancy explained. She lifted the plastic bag hanging from her right arm. "Not that I'm not excited."

Sonia smiled. "So, where?"

"Bus stop? Half an hour?"

Nancy's heart was pounding as Sonia headed toward a coffee shop down the block and Nancy headed for a neon green cross hanging from an awning. A bald man in spectacles and a button-down coat looked up from behind a counter as the dusty bell jingled to announce Nancy's arrival.

Nancy looked around. Something to settle her stomach, something, long fragile slender boxes. She found a pair of pregnancy tests which guaranteed nearly errorproof results and a box of seltzer tabs with a smiling frog on the carton.

The short heavyset woman behind the cash register peered at Nancy from beneath darkened eyelashes as she rang up her purchases. Nancy blushed faintly, managing a smile as she took the crinkling paper bag and stuffed it into the larger bag from the cell phone store.

She walked to the next store up the street and pushed through the racks of castoff clothes until she found a smooth peach shirt. She passed over a few euros and pushed the shirt into her bag, making sure it covered the paper bag from the pharmacy.

Sonia was eating an apple, sitting on the bench, as Nancy approached the bus stop. "Find everything you were looking for?" Sonia asked.

"Yeah," Nancy said.

When Nancy unlocked her door she found a white piece of paper notifying her that she had a package waiting. She plugged in her phone to start the twelve-hour charging cycle and then walked over to the student union.

"Drew," the guy behind the counter read, pushing up his steel wire rims. He lifted a box wrapped in brown paper and passed it over to her. "Sign here."

Her address had been written in Ned's handwriting.

She managed somehow to wait until she was safely back in her own room before she ripped the paper off and opened the box. A rich dark brown leather coat was inside. Nancy ran her fingers over it, then slipped into the coat and put her hands in the pockets. She found a sheet of paper folded in one pocket.

_I love you_, she read. _I bought you this just so I could smell your perfume again._

Still in Ned's jacket, Nancy reached into the bag and took out the pregnancy tests.

--

Ned was looking at his cell phone, but it was still dark. He stared at it, willing it to ring, wondering what he would say when it did.

The dark bar was a block up the street. He was sitting in a pool of amber light in one of the booths. His phone was on one of the faint dark rings, the slightly tacky dark wood yielding under a careless fingernail.

Sheri was across the room. Her boyfriend and Cole were playing pool at the table. She pouted when he brushed her clinging hand off his shoulder, and Ned could practically feel her glance in his direction.

He tossed down the rest of his drink, left a bill on the table and headed for the door, managing not to break into a run.

He had just walked into the lobby of his hotel when his phone rang. His heart in his throat, Ned checked the backlit display. Mike's name showed there.

"Hey," Ned greeted his friend, his pulse slowing by degrees. "What's up?"

"Tell me what you're doing this weekend," Mike said, a grin in his voice.

"Whatever you say, my man."

--

Just after midnight. Nancy knew she needed to sleep. They were taking their first bus into town to meet with their mentors the next day. Nancy had bought a new shirt and some suitably demure earrings just for the trip. Carlos would be coming with them, he'd done this all before.

Her stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, then subsided.

She'd been fine the past few days. If she did take the test in the morning, it would come back negative. A waste of money. She wasn't pregnant.

She looked over at Ned's coat. The weather was still too warm for her to wear it, but in a month or two she would be grateful for its warmth. It still smelled faintly of their perfume. Theirs. She rose out of bed in one graceful movement and swept it up in her arms, burying her face in the lining.

Her phone was still charging. Not that it mattered. Seven hours' difference, he was probably in a loud restaurant full of smoked glass and muted lighting and black polished tables and girls whose tangled blonde curls brushed their bare shoulders, and wouldn't even be able to hear her call.

She placed the flat of her palm over her stomach.

In a few hours she'd think about calling again, if she was still awake. But this wasn't awake, not really. She felt like she couldn't stop staring into the graded shadows edging her room. She felt like the white unopened box resting on the bathroom countertop was shining with an ethereal brilliance. She wanted to wrap it in a shirt again and jam it into the back of a cabinet. It wouldn't tell her anything she didn't already know. She wasn't pregnant. Wasn't pregnant.

She took his coat to bed with her and hugged it to her, her legs tucked up in the fetal position.

She woke again and her phone was finished charging. Her hands were shaking as she picked it up. After a few false tries she finally heard her father's voice.

"Hey," he said. "You sound clear as a bell."

"I'd better, as much as this cost," she told him, stifling a yawn. "Now you can call and actually talk to me instead of one of my roommates. Well, maybe."

"Nice. How are things going over there?"

Nancy walked into her bathroom and stared at the white box on the countertop. "Not bad," she replied. "Got a big day tomorrow."

"Isn't it late over there?"

"It is. It's even already tomorrow," she said. "Want me to let you go?"

"I want you to get some sleep, Nan," her father replied. "You can call me when you get home, okay? Tell me how your day went. Call me at the office, I should be around."

"Okay," she said. "If you insist."

"I do," her father said. "Love you, Nan."

"Love you," Nancy replied.

--

Ned was sitting at the kitchen table with his best friend. Mike was staring intently at his cards. Ned, in turn, was dividing his attention between his quiet cell phone and the hand he'd been dealt.

Howie walked into the kitchen and grabbed a soda out of the refrigerator before he noticed Ned sitting at the table. "Hey man," Howie said in surprise, a grin lighting his face. "How's training?"

"Rough," Ned replied, extending his fist to knock it against Howie's. "How's practice going back here?"

Howie shrugged, leaning on one hip against the kitchen table. "Can't complain, if it gets me a pro deal too."

Ned laughed. "I'm sure it will," he replied. "You've got more running yards than the rest of us combined."

"Sure," Howie said, his deep voice low and tinged with his smile. "How's the little lady doing?"

"Good," Ned replied.

Once Howie had left the room, Mike tilted an eyebrow at Ned. "Something's bugging you."

Ned shrugged, and Mike shrugged back, then played a card. Ned put his cards down and scrubbed his palms against his jeans, suddenly craving a cigarette.

"Nancy's going to call me."

"And that's a problem." Mike gathered the cards and shuffled them with deceptive ease.

"Something happened."

Mike shuffled the cards again, then brushed a hand through his black hair, waiting.

"Something happened a little while ago. I had a few too many drinks one night and there were a lot of people hanging out in my hotel room. They do that. It's like they don't have lives, they're always around. There was this one chick who was hitting on me, and I passed out in bed and I wake up and the girl is actually lying there naked next to me."

Mike raised an eyebrow.

"It's not like I slept with her. She just, she was there. I got up and left her there and I didn't sleep with her, I swear I didn't."

"But you wanted to." Mike cut the cards into two even piles and then shuffled them again.

"If not for the fact that I have a fiancée and she had a boyfriend downstairs."

"She hot?"

"So is Nancy."

"She's hot," Mike confirmed to himself. "But you're sure nothing happened even though you were passed out."

Ned's fingers strayed too close to his cell phone. He shied away from it, as though afraid it would burn his skin. "How am I supposed to know?" he mumbled.

"But you want to tell her."

"I'd want to know if that happened to Nancy," Ned replied, meeting his eyes.

"And if she told you that, you'd believe her."

Ned ran his hands through his hair. "It's not like anything happened."

Mike dealt the cards out into two stacks and tidied them with the tips of his fingers. "Then why do you keep saying that."

Ned closed his eyes and rested his fingertips on his eyelids. "I've dreamt about her twice."

"You think that means anything? I can't even count the number of girls I've dreamt about, and I've never cheated on Jan."

Ned shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "I hate this feeling. I hate that probably everybody on the team thinks I slept with her."

"Like it would matter if they did."

"It'll matter if they 'mention' it to Nancy."

Ned was looking down at the scarred kitchen table when his cell phone lit and began to ring. He started back from the table, his face a solid mask.

Mike raised his eyebrows, but Ned grabbed his phone and backed away from the table, his eyes low. "Hey," he said, heading for the door.

"Hey," he heard Nancy's voice on the other end.

"How are you doing?" he asked, taking a deep breath of the dead leaf wind.

"Good," she replied. "I'm good."

He looked at his watch. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you, isn't it really late there?"

He heard her chuckle. "I just had this conversation with my father."

"Can't sleep?"

"Something like that," she replied. "I wanted to hear your voice."

"Where are you?"

"Heading outside," she said. "I don't know why. Something in the way you sound right now."

He laughed, looking down. "I'm outside too."

"I'll take your coat with me just in case." He heard the rasp of a door. "It's lovely."

"Glad you like it."

"You knew I would," she said, laughter tingeing her voice. "Reminds me of the last time I saw you."

"I meant for it to," he replied, one hand snaking under his collar to draw the chain out into the frost-edged air. He looked down at her ring. "I need to tell you something."

"That you love me?"

"I do," he said, his steps drawing close and tight. "I love you so much."

"I love you too," she replied. Smile still in her voice. His heart tightened in his chest.

"Sometimes I drink too much," he began. "And I've been missing you a lot and it's stupid but when I miss you, I drink, just so I'll stop thinking for a while."

"Have you been doing that a lot?" Her voice was level and soft.

"Not that much," he said. "A few times. Because we talk a lot and that helps with it."

"It helps me too," she replied. "To talk, not to drink."

"You mean you don't drown your sorrows at not seeing me in a pint of whiskey?"

"No," she replied softly. "I listen to your music. And I try not to be alone, because when I'm alone that's when it's worst."

"For me too," he said. "I try to keep people around. To stop me from thinking. And one night I was with a bunch of people with the team, we were all drinking at our hotel, and there was a girl flirting with me."

Her end of the conversation was entirely quiet. He couldn't even hear her breath.

"I wasn't flirting with her back."

He stopped, waiting, daring and dreading for her to speak, and after a long moment she unsealed her lips and murmured, "But you were drinking."

"There were a lot of people in my room watching TV, it's not like we were alone or anything, but I passed out."

Nancy blew a long breath between her lips, audibly to him. "Mmm."

"I didn't do anything with her."

"What did happen," she said. He could hear a soft distance in her voice, as though she was physically backing away from him. A weariness, an anger creeping in.

"I woke up and she was in bed with me."

He was sitting on a low wooden bench, the cool seeping in through his jeans, huddled over, hunched in on himself as he spoke the words. He could hear the beginning of a sob in the catch in her voice. "What," she breathed.

"We didn't, we didn't, I swear, I walked out and got another room and left her there. We didn't. I didn't."

"Are you with her?"

"No! She has a boyfriend! And she's not the one I want, Nan."

She made a low disgusted noise.

"I swear, I promise." He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, willing the prickling heat behind his eyelids back. "Nancy."

The soft static of wind against her phone met his ear. Then his phone made the muted diminutive chime of the end of a call.

"Nancy," he whispered again.

--

Nancy sank to her knees, the edges of her vision blurring with the curve of tears rising in her eyes. Her hand was hard and cramped around the plastic shell of her phone, and with a cry she tossed it away from her. It bounced once on the grass and rested face-down.

"Oh God," she breathed, the beginning of a scream rising faint in her voice. "Oh God." She pushed her hair out of her face and gasped in breath, the familiar clamminess across her skin. She retched, her forehead pressed to her trembling cold hand.

_He was with her, he was with her._

"No," she whispered, shaking her head. "No."

She rested on her knees for a long time, thinking of nothing. The wind shifted and she smelled the perfume again and she ripped his coat off savagely, throwing it to the ground.

She felt very hard, after, once the momentary fit of rage had passed. Not thinking about it. Not thinking. Solid, numb, only the pulse of breath constant in her. She picked up the coat and her phone and walked inside on legs she could barely control, on ground she could barely feel.

No. No, no.

She saw her music player and the white tangle of earphones and resisted the urge to throw it across the room. She tossed the coat across the back of a chair, tossed the phone onto her desk, went into the bathroom to wash out her mouth and saw the slim white box there.

With an incoherent cry she snatched it up in trembling fingers and threw it against the wall. It bounced off and into a dark corner, one edge crushed inward.

No.

Panic rose on spindle-tight fingers in her throat, creeping up her neck.

She slept fitfully, in intervals lasting less than an hour at a time, closing her eyes wearily before the reflexive tears could rise. A few times in her half-sleep she reached for the music player, once so far as to actually feel it under her fingertips, but she pulled back with a cry.

In the morning she stared at her reflection in the mirror and her eyes dropped. She pulled her hair back into a sloppy ponytail and almost walked away, but forced herself to smooth makeup over the bags under her eyes, the stark pale of her face. She still couldn't force herself to smile.

Sonia stood at the bus stop waiting, shifting her weight between her feet, a stiff black messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She smiled when Nancy approached. "Excited?"

Nancy took a long sip from her insulated cup of coffee. "Yeah," she replied.

Despite the terrible heaviness in her belly, she felt an old familiar spark of excitement begin to rise when they crested a hill and she saw the outskirts of the city again, mild and gleaming. Carlos glanced back over his shoulder at the sight and Nancy caught his eye without meaning to do it. Her stomach flipped slowly.

The newspaper building was a mausoleum of pale brick and heavy paned glass. "It was an old factory," Carlos called over his shoulder, and Nancy saw the light in his eyes. They took the stairs, the group bubbling with hushed conversation, Nancy's hand trailing up the chipped rail.

Their advisor huddled them all into a corner and read off her printed list in rapid Spanish. Nancy and the other redhead of the group, a pale freckled fireball named Kath, were assigned to the same reporter. Nancy took a final sip of her coffee, tossed the empty cup into a trashcan, gave Kath a tight smile and headed toward her new mentor.

"Susanne Munoz?"

A young woman in her own small glassed office, wide-cuffed sleeves already rolled up to her elbows, a sweeping curtain of blonde-streaked black hair hanging over her shoulder, looked up, burgundy lips stretching up in a suddenly relaxed smile. "Nancy and Kath?" she asked. She pushed her chair back and stood on black flats, coming around the desk to shake their hands. "English?"

"American," Nancy replied, while Kath nodded "Irish."

"Nice to meet you," Susanne said. She impatiently dusted her ink-streaked fingers on her charcoal slacks. Her eyes were small but bright.

The fatigue and exhaustion of the night before still hummed under her skin, but the insistence of it receded as Nancy took in the view from Susanne's office. "So let's get started," Nancy said, beginning to smile.

--

Ned put his head down and charged through the line, his legs stretching into a sprint before an errant shoulder took him down. He rested his palms on the turf, straining for breath.

Cole pulled his helmet off and let it fall down into the crook of his arm, offering Ned a hand up. "Good one," he said.

Once Ned had his breath back, he smiled his thanks. "Yeah, well," he said, shrugging it off.

Ned's heart started pounding as they walked off the field and headed to the locker room. He checked his phone with trembling fingers.

No missed calls.

Nancy still hadn't called him back.

--

Nancy managed to choke down a single baby carrot before she called Bess. "Hey," she said when her friend answered. "I need you to do me a favor."

"Sure," Bess replied.

At that Nancy managed a genuine smile. "Do you still have Jan's number?"

Once Bess had agreed, Nancy hung up the phone and noticed the nearly imperceptible movement of the potted plant on the low wall on her left. "Eating alone?" called a voice, just in her hearing.

"More like not eating," she replied, her voice pitched low and clear.

After a few moments Carlos poked his head around the low wall, smiled at her, and raised his eyebrows. Nancy nodded, gesturing for him to join her.

"So how was your first day?"

"Not bad," Nancy replied.

"You got Munoz, right?"

"Yeah," Nancy nodded, managing to spear a slice of cucumber. "She seems like she'll be pretty cool."

"I have worked for her a couple of times. She is really nice."

"So, be honest with me," Nancy said, finally admitting defeat and abandoning her salad. She put down her fork and folded her arms, leaning forward. "I'm going to be looking up files and doing background work all semester, aren't I."

Carlos smiled and took a sip of his soda. "Maybe," he said. "Something tells me you are not used to that."

"Something tells you right," Nancy replied. "I was a reporter on my college newspaper staff. I'm used to going out there and getting the story, not sneezing in a basement morgue."

Carlos's brow furrowed for a moment, then cleared. "Well, this program does take the best," he said. "I am sure they did not make a mistake. And I am sure it will not take Susanne long to give you some stories to work on."

"Good," Nancy replied.

--

Ned sent her an email. She left it in her inbox without reading it.

Once she was back in her room, standing in a pair of light cotton shorts and her bra, she looked down at the music player he'd given her.

She felt unaccountably heavy, slow, blurred from exhaustion and the dread that rose in her when she remembered their last conversation. A sick anticipation floated in her belly when she thought of what Bess might tell her, when she called back. She felt a sudden strong desire to turn her phone off and sleep through it. Forget all of it, forget everything, if only for a night. She didn't want to dream about him in the arms of someone else, not again. What she had imagined while conscious was bad enough.

She dug a tank top out and tugged it over her head.

The slender white box was still in a dusty corner of the bathroom. Nancy's gaze shied from it when she walked in to brush her teeth.

She heard the phone begin to ring and stilled the immediate start, the impulse to run for it. Instead she washed her mouth out, replaced her toothbrush, and padded across the floor.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Bess replied. "Only took me two tries, I'm getting good at this."

"Nice," Nancy said. She lowered herself to the mattress, then stretched out, holding the phone lightly to her ear. She sighed, her eyelashes falling to her cheeks, waiting.

"You okay?"

She hadn't been able to feel this despair while Carlos had been talking to her. She couldn't hold back an incredulous snicker. "Should I be okay?"

Bess took a long breath. "Well, it's not like... I mean, do you think Ned would tell you about that girl and then lie to you about what happened? What would be the point?"

Nancy closed her eyes. "Plausible deniability."

"Has he ever done anything like that before? Told you about a girl and then you find out later that he hadn't told you everything?"

"Not really," Nancy admitted. "He tries to get it over with. I just need someone else to tell me. I'm still mad at him, but I'm not there, and it's so frustrating. I need to know for sure."

"You don't trust him."

"Why should I trust him now?" Nancy burst out. "He admitted to me that he did something that stupid."

"Yeah, but we've all had a little too much to drink before," Bess reminded her. "I seem to remember you up on the bar at Ned's frat house."

"That's not the same."

"It isn't," Bess sighed. "I gave Jan a heads-up, but she doesn't know anything about it yet."

"As long as she's not too obvious about it. They'll figure out what's going on."

"Yeah, well, Ned hasn't been your boyfriend this long without figuring out you have spies everywhere. And Jan's good enough to pump Mike for info without tipping him off."

"God," Nancy breathed. "I can't believe this."

"Do you want me to call you back tonight if she does call me?"

"No," Nancy groaned. "No, I don't want to hear it tonight. I don't want to find out he has a girl on the side tonight. Give me one more night to fool myself."

"For your sake, I hope he did tell you the truth."

"I almost wish he hadn't," Nancy whispered. "I keep wishing that it's all a bad dream."

--

Nancy dreamed that she took the pregnancy test and it came back positive. When she called Ned to tell him, he told her that he'd married the girl he'd been with, and that she had just given birth to their first child.

Nancy woke and took deep gasping breaths, her face wet with perspiration and tears. She flung the blankets off her legs and lay panting in the dark, her eyes adjusting to the faint light from the streetlamp. After a moment the familiar nausea rose again, and she rolled off the bed, creeping on sleep-numbed legs toward her bathroom.

The tile was cold against her bare knees, warming all too soon at the heat of her skin. She choked a sob back and propped on her elbows, her head in her hands, eyes blurred and puffy.

No, no. He loved her. He'd told her so many times. He had to. They had made love, he had been closer to her than he had been to anyone else, he wouldn't do this. He wouldn't.

The white box was still in the corner. The sight of it made her sick again.

--

"Heard from her yet?"

"No," Ned growled. "And don't say I told you so."

"I'd never dream of it," Mike replied. "Didn't she blow you off for an entire week this summer?"

"Yeah," Ned sighed. "We had a fight because she thought something exactly like this would happen."

"And you had to go and tell her. Boy scout."

"Yeah, I did," Ned replied. "She would have found out."

Mike sighed. "Well, good luck," he said. "If you need somewhere to crash this weekend..."

"I think I do," Ned said. "Thanks."

--

Nancy was wearing a soft green silk camisole under a matching angora sweater, a black knee-length skirt and black leather boots the next morning when she came to breakfast. She served herself a plate full of fresh fruit, muffins and yogurt, and set to it energetically when she sat down.

Sonia watched her with interest. "Here I was thinking you never ate breakfast. Or anything else, for that matter."

Nancy swallowed a bite of apple. "Long night," she said.

Kath walked over and Nancy, her mouth still full, gestured wordlessly for Kath to join their table. After a brief glance around, Kath pulled out a chair and put down her tray.

"We don't get to go again until tomorrow?"

Mariah, still poking at her plate with her fork, shot Nancy a grin. "What, did you get some beautiful young reporter?"

"Not the way you're thinking," Nancy replied. "It just felt good to get off campus."

"I know what you mean," Mariah replied, stretching her arms. "We're getting together with a few of the reporters tomorrow, after. Come with us."

Nancy took a long sip of orange juice. "Okay," she agreed. Then she grinned.

Carlos walked over, peeling an orange. Kath smiled up at him, and Nancy felt a brief uncomfortable sensation in her belly. When he returned her smile, it was to the entire table. "How was it?"

"Yesterday?" Sonia asked, pale eyes gazing up to meet his. "I think it's going to be fun."

"Maybe because you got Feliz," Cessette said, bumping her shoulder against Sonia's.

"Oh shut up," Sonia replied, then colored faintly when she glanced in Carlos's direction.

Nancy had finished all her fruit cocktail, but she felt her stomach dissolve into butterflies which wanted nothing to do with her blueberry muffin. After another long sip of orange juice she peeled the paper off her muffin and broke off a chunk.

"You gonna go out with us, Carlos?" Mariah asked, fluttering her eyelashes outrageously. She let out a peal of low, throaty laughter. Nancy's heart tightened in her chest. "All work and no play..."

"When?" He put the long strip of peel on the table between Nancy and Kath's trays and tore off a section of orange.

"Tomorrow night." Mariah gave him a wide, genuine grin. She really was quite beautiful, Nancy realized. Disconsolate, Nancy put a bite of muffin into her mouth.

"Probably," Carlos said, casual. He ate another section of orange.

After class Nancy headed to the library to do some research. She darted between the stacks, a slight headache developing as she mentally translated book titles into English. The library's section on dentistry was extensive, but the rest of their medical section she found sorely lacking; the college had a section devoted to dentist training but no other health branch. After a few wrong turns she found what she was looking for and pulled three volumes on the city of Madrid.

Nancy heard a door slam. She looked up to see Kath walking out of a dark room, the red pinch of reading glasses still showing on the bridge of her nose, rubbing her forehead with her gaze down. When Kath looked around, blinking, she caught sight of Nancy and smiled.

"Microfiche?"

Kath nodded, an amazed look on her face. "How...?"

"I've had that expression on my face before," Nancy laughed. "Doing some research?"

"Yeah," Kath admitted. She sank into a chair near Nancy's. "Susanne Munoz does a little bit of everything. That's about all I've figured out."

"How long has she been with the paper?"

"At least two years. If she was here before then, she was keeping a low profile."

Nancy flipped the cover of her book closed. "I've had enough of this for today."

--

"Tell me what he told you again."

Nancy closed her eyes, her brow furrowing. Midway through the chanted recitation, she stretched out on her bed and pulled the sheet and a light blanket over her knees. "So I guess Jan found out something," Nancy said wearily.

"Pretty much the same," Bess said. "She was naked, Ned booked another room in the hotel, he's been avoiding her ever since--"

"She was _naked_?" Nancy repeated. But she didn't feel angry. Only bone-tired and sad, so sad.

"Yeah," Bess said, subdued. "He wasn't," she added.

Nancy closed her eyes and held the phone away from her as she choked in a breath. She heard Bess's sympathy, but it was barely reaching her, as though from a long distance. She hung up the phone with Bess, who still sounded worried, and managed to get through a phone conversation with her father without his sensing anything wrong with her. Not that she expected him to be able to do so, with the Atlantic between them.

The last thing she did before falling into an uneasy sleep was take the engagement ring off her finger and place it carefully, diamond toward her, beside her alarm clock.

--

Carlos noticed.

Nancy collapsed into a seat at the corner booth, the faintest smile on her blush-pink lips, and allowed Carlos to order a drink for her, in rapid Spanish she didn't even try to translate. Eyes closed, hair pulled partly back and held in place with a clip, pink lace tank top, chocolate-brown fine wale cords and wedges on her perfectly pedicured feet. She had dusted her shoulders and the shadow of her décolletage with a softly shimmering powder. Carlos liked it.

At least, behind her tired eyes, she thought his was the appreciative gaze on her.

He was wearing a smooth white button-down with a wide open collar, sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms, and a pair of soft camel khakis. She knew they were soft because he had been sitting rather close to her during the meeting at the newsroom, and she'd accidentally brushed her fingertips over them when she'd accidentally dropped her pencil and accidentally leaned over to give him a very obvious excuse to glance down her shirt.

Accidentally.

All of it accidental.

She was carrying a small handbag covered in iridescent beads, just large enough for a few varied forms of identification and her cell phone. Mariah was pounding on the table for attention, in a red silk shirred blouse and matching bright lipstick, stiletto heels and eyes for Carlos. Eye makeup so heavy she looked like she'd been punched in both. Nancy maintained the faint smile and the just-raised lashes, her fingertips resting on the table.

"Now!" Mariah demanded. "I love this song!"

Carlos darted a glance that might have been in Nancy's direction, but he followed anyway, led by her hand wrapped around the hem of his shirt. Nancy took the drink Carlos had ordered her from the sad-eyed waitress and sipped it, tasting vodka. Javier, who had exchanged fewer than a dozen words with her, left the table with Cessette, and Nancy was left with a distinctly ill at ease Kath.

"Lusting for a Guinness?" Nancy asked, raising her eyelashes the least little bit as her smile broadened.

"Can't stand the stuff," Kath admitted, grinning. "I'd love some Bushmills."

"Whiskey?" Nancy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Good for you." She lifted her glass a few inches off the table.

Kath looked at her for a long minute. "You okay?"

"I will be, once I finish this," Nancy said, and took a demonstrative long sip of her drink. "You?"

Kath didn't answer until she had gestured for one of the same and received it. She bit the cherry resting on the ice and then toyed with the stem. "Why did you come here?"

Nancy was watching her with frank interest now. "Why did you?"

"I felt like I was spinning my wheels at home." With the sweet taste of the drink on her tongue, Kath's brogue grew broader. "I have three sisters, all settled down with husbands already. But that's not what I want."

"Must be nice," Nancy said, smiling softly. "I don't have any sisters or brothers."

"Sometimes it is nice." Kath took a long sip of her drink.

"I never thought I'd be here," Nancy began. "I thought I'd be planning my wedding right now." She snorted, staring down at her glass.

Just after Nancy's condensed autobiography and Kath's sympathetic noises, Carlos came back to the table with Mariah in tow. She could see the fine light sheen of sweat on his upper lip, the slight dishevel of his hair. He raised his eyebrow at Kath, and Kath and Nancy exchanged glances. Nancy managed to finish off her drink and push herself to her feet. "Go," she said, shooing Kath off. "I'll go get a refill on this."

She was halfway to the smoky, blue-lit bar when her purse started vibrating. Sighing, she put her drink on a convenient table, wiped her wet palm on her thigh, and dug her phone out of her purse.

"Hello?"

"Nancy?"

Nancy heaved another sigh. "Hang on," she mumbled, weaving her way through the crowd until she was out of the club. Once she was in the cooler air, she looked around, headed away from a cluster of mumbling drunks and around a corner. "Ned," she breathed.

"Hey," he replied.

She stood, resting her weight on her left foot while she slipped her right out of her shoe and rubbed it against her ankle wearily. "What do you want," she asked flatly.

"To say I'm sorry, again," he said.

She closed her eyes. She could see him in half-shadow, sitting at the desk back in his room at the frat house, one hand kneading his forehead, the curve of his cheek defined by the silver lamp. Fear and worry and need in his eyes.

She drank in a breath so deep that the chill ached in her throat. "I don't think we should get married," she said.

He made a faint noise. "What," he said, in that soft voice. Like he'd just been sucker punched and all his breath was gone. Like she had felt.

She cleared her throat. "I think we should break up," she said. "I think if this past few weeks has taught us anything, it's that we're not ready for this."

"Not ready for what?"

"To be together the rest of our lives. To commit to each other. You can't even wait a month," she said, and the anger began to creep into her voice as it grew louder, "to pick up the first piece of ass who flirts with you--"

"I can't believe you would even fucking say that to me after all the fucking times--"

"That what?" she demanded. "Tell me the last time I woke up next to a naked guy who wasn't you."

"Oh, so you've never done a damn thing wrong. You've been a saint during our entire relationship."

She sucked in a breath, closing her eyes. "Don't you see," she said, forcing her voice to a trembling approximation of normal. "God, this is just the beginning of it. We jumped into this too fast."

"So you don't love me anymore?"

Nancy reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose, tilted her head back. She felt the tears seep at the corner of her eyes. "You're always going to be special to me," she said. "You were my first."

"Nancy, you can't do this."

"Yes I can," she said. "I can and I just did. Don't call me again."

"I don't accept this."

She bit back a reply, forcing herself to take a long breath instead. "If you respect me you will."

"Look, I know I fucked up. I know that. But, Nancy, I swear to God, I drank too much. That was all. The rest of it was all her."

"Whatever," she breathed. "I'm done with this."

"So you can just throw us away like this."

She swallowed, then waited until she could almost breathe normally, against the harsh rasp of his anger into her ear. "Goodbye," she said, then hung up the phone.

At the table Sonia and Kath were waiting. Nancy looked out on the floor. Mariah was dancing very close to a tall guy in a ballcap.

"You're white as a sheet," Kath said. "Is it that cold outside? Get another drink."

"I'll get you one," Carlos offered, and she turned her head to gaze into his ice-blue eyes. "Want a dance?"

"Love one," she replied. Nancy turned off her phone and left her purse with Kath, then let Carlos take her hand and lead her up to the bar again.

--

Ned felt physically ill when he heard her hang up on him again.

He launched himself to his feet, anger coiled tight and hot in his gut. He slammed the door open and headed out, pacing in the elevator, his eyes locked on the indicator until he reached the ground floor. In the lobby he managed not to break into a run until he was three steps out onto the pavement, in the wind, in the strained fall sunlight.

"God, no, no," he said aloud. He'd drawn the ring out from under his shirt before he called her, and now it thumped rhythmically against his chest with every pounding step he made. "No."

Bess had sounded funny when he'd called to get Nancy's phone number. He'd chalked it up to her shock that he hadn't had it before she did, but then, she and Nancy were best friends, Nancy had probably told her all about his indiscretion.

But he hadn't.

_Hanged for a sheep as a lamb_, came a wicked little voice in his head.

Sheri had been giving him looks. Again. He couldn't have more than one drink anymore, he locked his door at night and went to sleep sober and his fiancée--

_Ex_, butted in the voice, nastily gleeful.

And she was an ocean away, with the nerve to be mad at him. At least he'd never honestly proposed to anyone else, at least he hadn't spent an entire summer cozying up to some random Australian and then lying to her about it later.

None of it mattered.

He pushed himself, harder and harder, until the air burned hot trails in his lungs, until his legs were shaking with exertion, until his thoughts had been drowned out by the singing fury in his head.


	5. interlude

Three weeks.

Last night had been the first night she hadn't dreamt about him. Some nights she fell into his arms easily, no need for forgiveness because in her dream none of it had happened. Then she woke, sick with anger and loss. Some nights he was just a spectator, a shaded silent figure who greeted her with his familiar smile. Some nights.

Nancy stared blearily down at the keyboard. It almost looked normal, almost, just like the news homepages almost looked normal, and then she would concentrate and feel the unbearable frustration of not knowing immediately what everything meant. If she was home, if only she was home. She could get into her Mustang and drive until she felt calm again, somehow, but here there were buses and unfamiliar street signs and the steady pulsing in her ears.

_If I hadn't done this, if I hadn't come here, he wouldn't have been alone in his room that night. He would have been with me. This would never have happened._

But it was done. And she would be damned if her coming over here would be for naught, after what it had cost her.

He sent her emails, after the space of a few days, and in a momentary fit of weakness she had almost opened one, but had pulled back at the last instant. Maybe he thought she was reading them. But she knew it all, from his own lips, knew that it would all be padded half-truths, and, and, besides. This wasn't all her fault, she hadn't jumped into bed with the first guy she'd met. She hadn't.

_Why did I trust him._

The screen blurred to a wash of color as another wave of tears rose to her eyes, and she pressed her fingers against her brow, willing them back. It was supposed to stop hurting sometime. She had dumped him before, and it...

And he had come back.

"Found anything yet?" Kath asked, at her right elbow.

Nancy forced a smile. "Not yet," she replied.

She was supposed to have started her period, again, the day before. She had checked and double-checked, sure that it had to happen this time, that the one time she'd skipped had been an anomaly. And then she had thrown up.

--

"How are you holding up?"

"Fine," Nancy replied. "Good. How's court?"

"The same," her father replied. "Please tell me you're actually learning something over there."

_Learning how much of a jackass your once-future son-in-law is._ "Of course," she said brightly. "How to strongarm a source into talking, that's my favorite."

"So, nothing," her father replied.

Nancy laughed, despite herself. "Well, there is this one extremely knowledgeable professor, whose accent is so thick I don't understand what he's saying half the time. But he survived malaria, and was shot at during the war, and all the girls think he's dreamy."

Her voice trailed off at the end of it. A lifetime ago, someone else's voice.

"That's my girl," Carson said. "Just, don't get malaria, or shot at, and we'll be fine."

Nancy hung up the phone and looked toward the bathroom, then turned to her schoolwork. She toiled through a week's worth of preparation readings for one of her classes, complete with highlighter and pencil and painstaking notes, pausing only once, to throw up the crackers and water she'd eaten for dinner. It had been worth a shot, even if it still didn't work.

Then, in a dejected sleepwalk, not meeting her own eyes in the mirror, she read the instructions on the test. Best results, first thing in the morning. Like she could sleep, for the waiting.

--

Nancy didn't take the test the next morning.

She went to class, but didn't hear anything the teacher was saying. She drew a series of boxes in the margin of her otherwise blank notebook sheet and tried to weigh it all, but it was too much.

The test had to come back negative.

Because if it didn't, her father was going to kill her.

That was the litany, which repeated over and over, not allowing a word in edgewise. Nancy dug the point of her pen into the paper and twisted it out to form a spiral. The teacher was demonstrating something. A girl's chin fell out of her cupped palm and her head crashed to the desk, waking her immediately.

_Has to be negative._

That was it, the entirety of her thoughts.

And then Ned's face filled her mind's eye and panic rose in her.

--

She took the airplane bottle of rum in one hand and the much-abused box in the other. "Three minutes," she read aloud. "So that's all it takes."

According to the box, many women were far too hasty to take a test of this nature. She felt positively tardy in waiting, not until the first day of her first missed period, but the third day of her second missed period. But then, skipping two periods was no indication. None at all.

"Negative," she hissed fiercely in the direction of the silent test. "Negative."

She already had a glass of coke poured, to chase the rum. Otherwise she'd never be able to actually look down at the well and read off her test results. She clicked the bottle over her fingernails. Maybe she was expecting too much from a single mouthful of rum. A flask would be better.

Shaking her head, she twisted off the cap and placed the bottle on her desk. She looked into her bathroom, at the white plastic, and wanted to throw it into the trash can, unread. She didn't want to know. She didn't.

One dot for no, two for yes. The paler in color, the less certain.

She picked up the uncapped bottle and walked into the bathroom, trembling slightly. Just one brush with the side of her hand and the results would be in the trash and she wouldn't know, and she could curse herself for being silly and in a month she'd have her period and everything would be back to normal, except of course for the fact that Ned would still not be her fiancé and she would still wake up gasping his name and trying to forget.

Her eye caught it so fast. Two dots. Heavy, dark dots.

She brought the bottle to her pursed lips, then forced herself to stare at it. Maybe it had been a reflection, a trick of her eyes...

No, no trick.

She swallowed it all fast and coughed, then went back into her bedroom and gulped down her chaser. Then she went back and looked at the test for a third time. It hadn't changed.

"It could be wrong," she said. The words were comforting. "It is wrong," she said, in a stronger voice. "It's wrong, they're not completely accurate. I'm hysterical over nothing."

--

"You're pregnant," the nurse said.

Nancy looked down at her bare knees. She was in a thin gown. Her back was cold. Her feet were bare and swinging over the edge of the table. "You're sure?" she asked, but the words took so much effort to force out.

The nurse nodded. "When was the date of your last period?"

Nancy knew it by heart and repeated it back to her. Yes, she had been using prevention. Yes, she knew who the father was.

"What are my options?" Nancy asked finally, looking up at the nurse's face. "What can I do?"

"We have prenatal checkups here at the clinic," the nurse replied. "You won't be due until May. If you mean options as in adoption programs..."

"I won't be here in May," Nancy said. Her voice was flat. "I'm going back to the States in December. I mean..." Nancy shrugged.

The nurse looked at her with sharp eyes. "You have a month or so, if you mean deciding about terminating your pregnancy."

Nancy nodded. "Do you do that here?"

The nurse shook her head. "We don't. There's a good clinic downtown. Safe and discreet."

Nancy had never thought she would be saying those words, but she'd never thought she'd be discussing an extramarital pregnancy with a Spanish nurse, either. She reached up and wiped away the one tear that had escaped her eyes. "I have a month," she said.

The nurse nodded. "I'm going to write you down for some counseling sessions," she said.

Nancy shook her head. "I don't need counseling," she said. "No."

"Maybe you want to discuss this with your partner?"

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside Nancy. Imagine. Calling Ned, asking how it was going with the new girlfriend, then casually mention that she was carrying his child. A sudden wave of nausea hit her, and Nancy leaned on her right hand, trying to catch her breath.

"No," she managed. "This is my decision."

_I'll never see him again and he will never know about this._

--

Every email started out the same, because he knew she wasn't reading them. Not a single notification otherwise. Screaming into a vacuum.

_Nancy, I'm so sorry._

The first week or so had been variations on that theme, until his indignation and fear had driven him to lash out at her for being so cold. But that had faded, and again he was writing to her that he was sorry every night. Doing his penance, which counted for nothing because she never heard it.

_Maybe you don't get the game where you are. If you do, you can just skip this part._

_We won. It was amazing._

He had won. With her ring tucked under his jersey he had carried the ball into the end-zone, eluding everyone. The entire stadium had cheered. A thousand times better than any other high he'd ever felt. The news cameras had been waiting in the locker room.

"You're somebody now," Cole had said, a wide grin on his face. "Welcome to the big time."

He didn't write any of that.

_Every time I play I wish you were here to see it. I wish you'd never left. Every day is the same to me._

Every day was the same only because he had taken to bribing the concierge at the hotels to give him a separate room key, far away from the rest of the crowd. The girls could slip the bellboy all the money they wanted, but waited in a cold room for him, while he was far away, staring at the ceiling, wishing he could sleep.

_I barely see her anymore, Nan. The only reason I do see her is because she's dating guys on the team. Almost all of them. I don't talk to her. I don't even want to look at her. If you were here. Man, I wish you were._

The lawyer, the one he had retained after Nancy's father had learned of the broken engagement, had sent a stack of endorsement proposals. They lay beside his elbow. He'd flipped through the first one, betting to himself the figure before he actually saw it.

The newspapers had all said he was golden. All he had to do was sign one of the contracts and he would be settled for life.

_I finally feel like I actually have a name,_ he wrote. _Like I'm someone. Not just some college kid waiting for his life to start. And I want you to be here to see that._

He sighed.

_I love you. I still want to marry you. Even if it takes you years to be ready to marry me. I'm willing to wait. I'll be here._

--

"Nan, you want to go out tonight?"

Carlos was there, Javier, Mariah. Everyone. They went out to the club and Nancy danced until she was exhausted, sick and hot and tired. Then she sat at their table and nursed a drink, trying not to think about what the nurse had told her. The group climbed into a cab and went to someone's apartment and Nancy was sitting in a sweltering kitchen with a bottle of vodka and a wet shot glass on the table in front of her.

_It's not real. Not yet._

She poured herself a shot and stared at it. When she lifted it to her lips her stomach rose violently and she shoved her chair back hard, groping her way through a crowd of chattering partygoers, finding the bathroom just in time. She sank to her knees, sobbing quietly.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Go away," she called in Spanish, holding her hair away from her wet flushed face, crying.

"Nancy?"

Nancy clung to the sink and climbed to her feet, rinsed her face and scowled at her smeared mascara. "Just a minute," she called back, breathing deeply. When she opened the door Mariah was standing there.

"You okay?"

"I think I'm just tired," Nancy replied, attempting a smile.

"You want to go back? We can call a cab," she offered.

"Yeah, I think that would be a good idea," Nancy admitted. "I'm sorry."

When the cab pulled up at her apartment building, the blinding halo of a police car was lighting the parking lot. "What happened?" Nancy asked the driver.

"Who knows," the driver said.

Nancy found her roommates standing in the living room, sipping coffee. "What's going on outside?"

"You missed it," Mina said. "There's a thief."

"Here?" Nancy gasped. "Something was stolen here?"

"Not yet," Allie said. "But judging by how many people have had things stolen..."

Nancy unlocked her room and found the engagement ring still on her nightstand. With trembling fingers she took off her necklace and threaded the thin chain through the ring, then put it back around her neck.

Even if Ned was a cheating slimeball, she didn't want his family ring stolen.

--

Ned had just walked into the locker room after practice, sweeping his helmet off. Cole muttered something under his breath but Ned didn't catch it.

Then he saw Sheri, standing in front of his locker.

Ned paused for a moment, considering, then walked straight toward her. He stared at his locker, his face wooden, until Sheri moved over slightly to allow him access.

"We need to talk."

Ned made a soft disbelieving noise in his throat and grabbed his duffel bag.

"I mean it."

He pushed the locker closed and headed toward the showers, and she was at his heels. "If I have to I'll go in there with you."

"No, you won't," Ned said, without looking at her. "I don't care what you have to say to me."

She recoiled. "Why are you being like this?" she snapped. "After what happened."

Before Ned knew what he was doing, he'd swept a bare arm toward her, and she backed into a wall quickly to avoid it. Ned took a long breath. "Stay away from me."

Sheri wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'll wait until you get dressed," she said.

The water dripped off the ring as he showered quickly, silent. Once he was dressed he found a side door and took that out of the locker room, but Sheri was leaning against the hood of his car, waiting for him.

Ned sighed. "Go home," he told her.

"We need to talk."

"You said that," Ned replied. "And I still don't care."

Sheri stared at him for a minute, then dropped her gaze to her purse. "Fine," she said. "I'm pregnant."

Ned's mouth dropped open slightly, but he didn't say anything. His stomach had dropped to his feet.

Sheri narrowed her eyes at him. "You bastard."

"We didn't have sex," he hissed in her direction. The side door opened and a few players walked out. Ned unlocked his car and Sheri slid into the passenger seat.

"You know damn well we didn't have sex," Ned repeated, once they were alone inside the car.

"I know you were out of it, but not that out of it," Sheri said.

Ned ran a hand through his hair. "Bitch," he said. "You have no proof."

"My friend was in your room," Sheri said. "My friend saw us alone in there when she left. Or did you forget that too."

Ned was quiet for a minute. Then he started laughing, bitterly. "So you waited until a contract came my way before you decided to come and spring this on me."

"I didn't find out until a few days ago," she told him.

"Get out."

Sheri paused, then reached out to touch Ned's arm. Ned shrank back and pushed himself out of the car, stalking around to her door. He opened it and stood silently, his mouth a line. Sheri stared up at him, from beneath smoke-dark lids, then slipped one shapely leg out of the car. "This isn't over," she said.

"Yes it is," he said. "Get out of my car."

She left, but not before at least five of his teammates had watched her leave. Ned sat in his car, numb, the keys dangling in the cold ignition.

The smooth light slide of her hair brushing his chest.

Ned rested his forehead against the steering wheel, hating the persistence of his breath.

--

Nancy shoved the slip of paper into her pocket and looked at the stone building. The sign read that they were closed on Sundays.

_No one else._

A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she continued her walk up the street. She hadn't spoken to her father since she'd found out. Not since she was sure. She could take care of it and everything would be all right and then she could talk to her father again. He wouldn't know.

Her cell phone rang and her heart was in her throat. With trembling fingers she dug it out of her purse and checked the display.

"Bess?"

"Hey," Bess said. "You okay?"

Nancy spotted a vacant bench and headed for it, fighting to keep her breath steady. "I'm okay," Nancy said. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, pretty good. Midterms, you know. And of course wishing you were here to help me with the studying. Or at least the concentrating."

"Bess," Nancy said, then fell quiet.

"You sound like you're outside," Bess said. "Or you're upset about something."

Nancy covered her face with her hand and took a deep breath. She felt like she would never stop shaking. "I'm pregnant."

Bess was quiet. "Is... are you..." Then she laughed under her breath. "Are you happy?"

"No," Nancy moaned. "God, no."

"Did you tell Ned?" Bess sounded hesitant.

Nancy laughed. "No."

"But you're going to."

Nancy sighed. "I don't know if I am or not," she said slowly.

"You have to."

"How do I have to?" Nancy demanded. A sudden surge of anger rose in her. "I owe him anything, after what he did to me?"

"I'm sorry," Bess said in a small voice. "I'm sorry."

"I am too," Nancy said. "God."

"So you're coming back early?"

"I don't think so," Nancy said. "Not until December."

"But-- Nan, I mean, this is huge."

"It doesn't have to be," Nancy said. "Don't tell anyone else. Especially not my dad."

"Not even George?"

"I guess George," Nancy said. "But that's it. I mean it."

"Okay, okay," Bess said defensively. "When did you find out?"

"A few days ago. I wouldn't believe the pregnancy test, but I went to the doctor and, yeah, I'm sure."

"I can't believe you're going to have a baby," Bess sighed.

Nancy glanced back over her shoulder, at the clinic. "Me either," Nancy replied.

--

Nancy could pinpoint the exact moment when Bess told George, because George called, with the same hesitant congratulations. Nancy put off her friend's questions with the same ill ease, resolving that on Monday she would go by the clinic and have the problem resolved. Bess and George would have no reason to disbelieve that she'd had a miscarriage.

On Monday Nancy walked out of class and caught the bus. Someone else who lived in her complex called for that stop, and Nancy stared out the window, steeling herself.

It didn't work. When the bus stopped Nancy took it, looking up at her familiar apartment window, feeling infinitely tired. _Tomorrow,_ she told herself.

"I will see you in town tomorrow?"

Carlos was standing at the bus stop, in a black shirt and jeans, smiling at her. Nancy's mouth went dry at the sight.

"I think you will."

Carlos glanced at the bus, then waved it on. "I had better," he said. "You are the entire reason I go."

Nancy blushed, smiling despite herself, blinking back the tears that had been rising. "So your grade isn't important?"

"Not that important," he said softly. "So I will see you?"

"Yes, yes," Nancy gave in. "I'll see you."

"Good."

Nancy left him standing at the stop and climbed up to her apartment, then stood with her back against her door, her hand on the lock.

"Yeah," she repeated, still smiling faintly.


	6. Chapter 6

"Nancy."

Nancy shoved the brown parcel into her bookbag and arranged an answering smile. "Hey."

"You still on for tonight?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Nancy smiled. "You said this was the hottest club ever."

"Yeah, well," Mariah said. "It's not like I ever see you that much once we get out."

Nancy had the grace to blush. "I know," she said. "But it'll be different tonight." _At least for a little while_, she thought. _Who knows, after that._

Once she came back to her room she plugged in her cell phone and took the parcel out of her bookbag. Bess had enclosed a note, which she found when she opened the front cover.

_What to Expect When You're Expecting._

She hadn't been able to find an English copy, and didn't want to go through translating when she was huddled, miserable, in her bed. So Bess had been kind enough to help her out.

She sighed. Her cell phone chimed, notifying her that she had received a text message, and she checked it. Carlos wouldn't be able to make it, but he wanted to make sure she would take his raincheck for the following evening. Just the two of them.

Nancy smiled.

After replying that she would definitely take him up on that, she took a quick shower and dressed in a soft black cashmere turtleneck and graphite slacks in low slingback heels. She was just lining her lips when her phone rang.

"Hey George," she greeted her other best friend.

"Hey," George said. "How are you doing?"

"Pretty good," Nancy said.

"Still getting morning sickness?"

"Not this week so far, thank God," Nancy sighed, staring at her reflection. "It's only a matter of time, though. How are classes?"

"The usual," George grumbled. "Torture. How much longer are you gonna be gone, again?"

"A month or two," Nancy replied, smiling slightly. "Not that long. I'm going out tonight, gonna try to forget all this school stuff."

"Is he gonna be there?"

"Not tonight," Nancy admitted. "But tomorrow. Might get some one-on-one with him."

"Oh," George said, and then grew quiet.

"What?" Nancy asked, her eyelashes fluttering against the mascara wand.

"Do you never... I mean, do you not even miss Ned?"

Nancy had not heard his name in a while. She rested her fingertips on the countertop, then walked back into her room and dropped into her desk chair. "I do miss him," she admitted quietly. "I wish things had gone differently."

George was quiet for a moment. "I was just wondering," she said. "You two were together for so long."

"Yeah, well," Nancy said. Then she cleared her throat. "I need to finish getting ready, so..."

"You're not mad, right?"

"I'm not mad," Nancy said. "I'm not. I'll call you when I get back to my room, all right?"

"Sure, you do that," George said.

They were all at the club. But George's question had put Nancy in a bad mood. Instead of dancing with any of the very appreciative guys around her, Nancy sat at their table and nursed a glass of orange juice.

"Where's Carlos?" Javier asked, taking a break to breathe after a round on the floor with Cessette. "I don't remember ever seeing you without him here."

Nancy forced a faint smile. "He couldn't make it tonight," she said.

"Well, then, you have to give me a dance," Javier said, shooting her a grin.

"Okay," Nancy said. "If you say so."

Mariah was dressed in an almost obscenely short fringed silk slip, her hair in a riot of curls, staring adoringly at the same guy she had been looking at that way for the past week. Nancy felt a sudden rush of jealousy, watching them together over Javier's shoulder. He was making the normal soft small talk, and he was a wonderful dancer, but she still felt the same unease.

"Nancy," Javier said softly, and Nancy looked up into his face. "You miss him, don't you."

"Yeah," she admitted. "I'm sorry, I'm not any fun tonight."

"Hey, not even I can be fun all the time."

Her stomach flipped slightly. "Thanks," she breathed.

The taxi dropped her off at her apartment near eleven. She walked in and stripped down to her underwear almost immediately, pulled the elastic out of her hair to let it fall on her shoulders. When her face was still gleaming from a brief thorough scrub, she walked over to the lower drawer on her desk and opened it.

After a long moment she closed it again, leaving the long-silent music player still inside.

--

"Nancy, I know you wanted to do something... bigger."

Nancy looked up from her notebook, tucking a strand of red-gold hair behind her near. "Well, if you have anything that needs doing?"

"It's not much, but it would be a big help to me if you could cover a press conference for me tonight."

"Really?" Nancy gazed up at Susanne, disbelieving. "I mean, I'd love to."

Susanne smiled at her gratefully. "Good," she said. "I knew I could count on you."

"Maybe I could bring Kath along, too? Get her some experience too?"

"No problem," Susanne replied. "But I want your notes on my desk at ten o'clock tomorrow morning, all right?"

"Sure," Nancy said, grinning.

Once Susanne had left, Nancy was still coasting on the high that her news had given her when her cell rang. "Hey," she said, pitching her voice low.

"What time do you want me to come by for you tonight?"

Nancy opened her mouth to reply, then gasped in a breath. "I have to work tonight," she groaned. "Susanne is letting me cover a press conference, she can't do it."

"But," Carlos said, then trailed off.

"I know," Nancy said.

Carlos had thought Nancy was gorgeous from the first time he'd met her, but the mutual interest that had been obvious to everyone else had only come out a week before, at the group's favorite club, when she noticed that he was no longer splitting his attention between her and three other girls. Just her. Dancing until her feet hurt like hell, but she was exhilarated. She felt more alive, with him, than she had since Ned had confessed to her. But their timing so far had just never quite worked.

"I know, but maybe we can do something," Nancy said. "I mean, tomorrow it's Friday, we won't have class or work this weekend, I'm sure we'll be able to get together."

"Yeah," Carlos said. "I really, really hope so."

"What do you have in mind?" Nancy teased him.

"Enjoying having you alone for once, Drew," Carlos replied.

Nancy sipped in a breath. "Yeah," she said, softly.

--

There was nothing to the press conference. Not really. Nancy showed up with a notebook, looked over the suggestions Susanne had made about questions she could ask, listened to what the other reporters asked. She also remembered her microcassette recorder, to catch the more rapid questions and answers for translation later. Sometimes, after a day of classes, she could feel her brain hurting all over from the strain of trying to keep up. Kath had been mortified that she'd been unable to make it.

During the taxi ride back to her apartment Nancy thought about calling Carlos and arranging a late dinner, but if she had to get her summary written, they really wouldn't have any time and she'd be preoccupied throughout. She sighed as she looked longingly at her cell phone. _Soon_, she thought.

She climbed the stairs up and let herself in with her key, then kicked her pumps off and walked on stocking feet into the kitchen. The television was on in the living room, but turned low, to some Sex and the City repeat. Two silhouetted heads showed above the back of the couch.

Not that Mina ever watched that show.

Nancy poured herself a tumbler of water and walked into the living room, quietly, watching carefully. Once she came around she stole a glance in that direction, then gasped aloud.

"Bess? George?"

The cousins woke up bleary-eyed, but happy. "Hey," George said first, managing to launch herself out of the enveloping couch and to her feet.

Nancy hugged her, laughing. "Man, I didn't realize how much I missed you guys," she said.

"You'd better have," Bess said, putting her arm around Nancy's shoulders.

"I just got your book a couple days ago," Nancy said. "Mail is so slow around here."

"Glad you got it," Bess said. "So... how is... that going?"

"Fine," Nancy said, resting her palm over her belly.

"Been to the doctor yet?"

"Not yet," Nancy said. She looked down. "I haven't told anyone here, and... how long are you guys gonna be here? We can go shopping, maybe go by a doctor's office..."

"Nan," George rolled her eyes. "You call right now."

"I can't, no one's open," Nancy replied, laughing. "Besides, I need to catch up with you guys. How are things? How have you guys been?"

"Good," Bess said, after she exchanged a glance with her cousin.

Nancy looked back and forth between them. "What?"

"Nothing," Bess replied. "Later."

"Where's your luggage? Are you staying nearby?"

"Yeah," George said. "As much fun as it would be to pile all three of us into your bed..."

"Yeah, I see your point," Nancy said. "Come on in."

They made the appropriate noises, asked questions and Bess even went so far as to ask if she could touch Nancy's still-flat belly, but something didn't seem right. Nancy blamed it on their jet lag. George kept yawning, and Bess wasn't her usual exuberant self.

"Okay, you're making me feel bad," Nancy said. "So go back to your hotel, please. After class-- oh, dammit."

George was watching her carefully. "Plans?"

"Yeah," Nancy admitted. "I'll cancel."

"Don't cancel," George said, stifling another yawn, murmuring her apologies. "We'll be here the rest of the weekend, we can spare you a Friday night watching unintelligible Spanish cable."

"Yeah, just give us some recommendations on where to go for some fun," Bess chimed in, wiggling her eyebrows.

Nancy reached a decision. "Give me the number of your hotel," she said. "I'll call you tomorrow. I know we can do something."

George was feeling around in her pockets for a spare sheet of paper, and withdrew a jewel case. Nancy took down the phone number Bess parroted, then returned her questioning gaze to George's hands.

George gave her a hesitant smile, which Bess seemed to share. She put the CD, labeled in black marker, down on Nancy's desk. "Ned wanted you to have this," she said.

Nancy tilted her head and looked back and forth between the two of them. "He knew you were coming over here?"

After a pause Bess nodded. "Yeah. He misses you."

"Okay," Nancy said, quietly, not trusting herself to speak further.

"Have a good night," George told her, and gave her a hug. Bess did as well, and for a moment the three of them stood together, eyes closed, wordless.

After she had called a cab for them and shown them out, watched the expanding exhaust trail until it had vanished, Nancy went back up to her room. She stood looking down at the CD for a moment before she could bring herself to touch it, and then opened her lower desk drawer quickly, grabbed her headphones and slammed it shut again. She put that and the notes from the conference into her bookbag and rushed out the door into the cooler night.

The computer lab was filled with the quiet buzz of the fluorescent lights and the occasional snicker of the group of girls huddled at one end. Nancy plugged her headphones into her microcassette recorder and finished writing her notes in record time, then read over them to make sure she hadn't made any glaring errors or grammar mistakes. She had checked her email when she had arrived, and an animated ad caught her eye.

Then a familiar name on a fading headline.

She clicked it, her breath catching in her throat. A new window opened, a long block of text, the slow loading picture.

Ned.

She would have known him anywhere. The story detailed how he had won the last few games for his team. Now he was the rookie with a name, product endorsements were soon to follow, he was the new darling.

Nancy clicked off her microcassette recorder, put the earphones into the computer port, loaded the CD he'd sent her and started listening.

--

"Thank you so much," Susanne said.

"Thanks for letting me cover it for you," Nancy said, holding her cell phone against her shoulder as she juggled her notebook and a messenger bag. "Were my notes any good to you?"

"They were great," Susanne said. "And I'll see you again Tuesday, right? I'll probably have another assignment for you then."

"I'll be looking forward to it," Nancy said with a smile in her voice as she wrestled her keys out of her bag and unlocked the door of her apartment.

George was waiting for her, having retired to Nancy's bedroom when Mina had emerged. She was sitting at Nancy's desk, scrawling in a notebook.

"Where's Bess?" Nancy asked, shouldering her messenger bag onto her unmade bed.

"In search of a vending machine," George replied, capping her pen. "You're leaving soon, though, aren't you."

"Yeah," Nancy sighed. She looked at her clothing collection and sighed to herself. "He's coming by to pick me up in about an hour. Unless, you two..."

"No," George said. "No, don't change your plans for us, trust me. Bess can get us in enough trouble all by herself. Got anything to do tomorrow?"

"Nothing," Nancy confessed. "I have a few things in the morning but I can catch up with you guys around lunchtime, and we'll go out tomorrow night. Is that okay?"

"It'll be great, Nan," George said, with a slight smile on her face. "Calm down. I know this was a surprise and you had no idea we were coming."

"Okay." Nancy finally stopped bustling around the room and sat down on her bed. "Ned. I read this article about him today."

"His game," George nodded. "I saw him in it. He was great. I'm sure his offers have been going through the roof."

"You don't know?" Nancy asked. "You haven't talked to him about it?"

George shrugged. Something, some expression was in her eyes that Nancy couldn't read. Nancy felt a sudden sickening suspicion that maybe George was carrying a torch for Ned, one that she hadn't realized until the two of them had broken up. "Not really," George said.

The flash of suspicion and anger had faded when Bess knocked on her door and peeked inside. "Hey guys," she said. "Nan, any fashion crises yet?"

Nancy put a bright smile on her face. "Let's see if we can make some," she said.

Forty-five minutes later Nancy was dressed and was pulling the last few curlers out of her hair. Bess and George were gone to whatever amusement they could find for themselves. With every glance George had given her, Nancy's suspicion had grown. She sat down at her desk, telling herself that it shouldn't bother her. Ned had every right to move on, even though she'd been sure that what he'd told her was the truth, that he didn't consider their engagement broken. Maybe the time between, the radio silence, had finally convinced him that she had been serious.

She still was. Just because she missed the bastard a little didn't mean she was going to take him back.

_Then why_, she wondered, _do I still have his number in my phone._

The doorbell rang. Mina reached it first and gave Carlos a very appreciative once-over before moving aside so he could come into the apartment. Nancy stood in the doorway of her bedroom, in a soft ivory sweater and a knee-length flared brown skirt, her hair tumbling over her shoulders in loose curls.

"You look," Carlos began, but couldn't finish.

"I know," Nancy smiled. "Let me grab my purse."

"So, I hope that story you ditched me to cover was worth it," Carlos said after Nancy had been settled into the passenger seat of his car.

"If by 'worth it' you mean she's going to give me more stories, she's already told me she would," Nancy beamed. "I'm really sorry."

"And it will never happen again?" Carlos prompted, a smile on his face.

Nancy crossed her fingers under the folds of her skirt. "We can hope," she said. "How often are you planning on taking me out for dinner, anyway?"

"As often as I can," he said. "As often as you want me to."

She smiled at him, then broke their joined gaze and looked out the window, wondering where Bess and George were. Wondering if George was feeding change into a pay phone on a street corner, wanting to hear Ned's voice.

Her stomach clenched.

"Good," she told him, resting her fingertips against the cool glass.

Dinner was traditional, excellent, in an unassuming building she never would have thought was a restaurant. Curtained booths, exposed bricks, candlelight, and the hostess looked Nancy over as though she was a rival for his affections. He knew the menu like the back of his hand, ordered for her, and though she usually found the act unspeakably chauvinistic, with him it was charming. The corner of the floor was cleared for dancing and he extended his hand, raised his eyebrow, and Nancy followed him out. His hand resting at her waist, his blue eyes always effortlessly catching hers. The clatter of dishes and silverware and the conversations of all the other diners soon faded.

"Nancy," he said lightly.

She looked up into his eyes and knew then, with a thrill up her spine, that he was going to kiss her, and that she wanted him to. She tilted her face up to meet his and closed her eyes, and when he finally pulled back her eyelashes were fluttering, her cheeks flushed slightly under her makeup. "Wow," she breathed.

"Ready for some dessert?"

"Am I ever," she said, batting her eyelashes at him. He laughed, a rich deep laugh, and put his arm around her waist as they maneuvered back to their own table.

Nancy toyed with her cappuccino and dumped another packet of sugar in, sensing Carlos's disappointment that he hadn't been able to persuade her into some slice of pie or cake, something that could be eaten with two bumping spoons and knowing glances. The taste of him still on her lips. She'd never been wanting, not after, there were so many others waiting on the line. Utterly taken with her. Though she was beginning to fear what December would bring, the certainty that she would be leaving this life. Everything was changing. Everything was different, now.

Before, Ned had always been in the background, waiting for her again. Not this time. Not ever again.

She swallowed. Carlos made some gently-smiled comment about how quiet she was being and she laughed it off, let her fingertips linger halfway across the table so that he could let his trail over when he picked up the check.

_Yes. Close the book and if he invites you back to his place, if he._

"You ready?"

"Yes," she said, her voice low, and then she raised her eyes to his.

--

A lingering kiss just outside her apartment and he was gone, with the promise that next time he wouldn't tire her out with dancing. A nice dinner back at his place, a movie, she could just relax and they could talk.

Nancy made a mental note to go to that lingerie shop she'd seen in town. The tasteful one.

Her room was too quiet, after that. She was too keyed up to sit quietly and not talk to anyone about what had happened, but Bess and George were probably still out. The pregnancy book Bess had sent her was still sitting, unread, on her desk, but that, her pregnancy, belonged to the life she hadn't started yet. Back in the States, back at Wilder, thank God she hadn't transferred to Emerson, she didn't think she could bear to see any references to him. Not anymore. The baby.

She huddled into a coat and crossed campus toward the computer lab, the utter silence filling up with the same questions she'd been asking herself since she'd seen the blue dots materialize before her eyes. She could let this happen and bind herself to Ned for eighteen more years, to a man who had cheated on her, and it would probably happen again, or she could have the child and never tell him.

Or she could just not have the child. Either that, or the doctor's appointment Bess and George kept urging her to keep. But the second she went to a doctor and started talking about her due date and her diet and scheduling follow-up, the bubble was burst, it would be over. She'd have no other choice than to carry to term.

She hadn't told either of them about her doubt or her fear or how seductive the idea was, to just let it happen in a gush of blood and it would all be over. She wasn't, she wouldn't, she wouldn't go back to Ned, and without him, it didn't make sense anymore. Not to carry the proof of their mistake, of her innocence.

Without the child, without this, no one knew yet, no one else. She was at the club every time she was invited, out there, dancing and laughing. Three-inch heels and slick lipstick and perfect legs, fumbled Spanish and fluttering eyelashes and a winning smile.

Carlos.

Going back to the States, having her baby, telling her father what had happened. Paternity testing and Ned's closed expression and eighteen years.

She hadn't been able to wait, not before, not when she'd seen his soft eyes from the height of an airport escalator. She'd counted the days until she could run into his arms again. Now it was all recriminations and child support, and, and, how could she pull deadlines with a baby in her arms, how could she even bother finishing her degree, with what Ned had done to her. While he was worshipped for running across a flat field with a ball under his arm. No doubt or worry about what the future would hold. No end to who he could have or what he would be given.

And George.

Nancy stopped at a vending machine and bought a Coke, drank half of it down at once, and stood gasping, lips wet. She was dreaming. Without this.

Oh God, to see Ned with George, to know he was happy with her while Nancy raised his child. God, no.

Why even go back, why even spend her time avoiding them when she could stay here? She could go anywhere. She could rid herself of this and go anywhere, and she could be the one they would avoid. She could be the one whose smiling face shone down at them from billboards and television commercials and internet webcasts. She could be the one. Return the ring and move on.

Nancy walked into the computer lab, a determined look on her face, and sat down next to Kath, who was checking her email. "So, how did it go?" Kath asked.

"Great," Nancy replied.

If she had been able to put her hands on a hammer, she would have splintered that CD into a thousand bits.

--

The anger had drained off by the time Nancy headed back to her room. No missed calls on her phone. She was fine with it all. Maybe George and Bess were back in their room. She called the hotel. After some wrangling in Spanish, she tried to tell the clerk that she was trying to reach the blonde American girl and her taller dark-haired cousin, but she had to have some word wrong because he vehemently denied any such party. Then he muttered something under his breath as she heard him attack a keyboard in the background, and with some flourished announcement he connected her to the room.

George answered. "Nan? Hey."

"Hey. You guys are back?"

"Yeah, Bess had a minor shoe emergency. You back from your date?"

"Yeah. Want to hang out? I can come over there if you're tired."

"No, that's okay," George said quickly. "We'll be over there. Give us half an hour."

As Nancy hung up the phone she belatedly realized what the clerk had been muttering under his breath.

_Three._

--

Nancy managed to get through the rest of the weekend by telling herself that she was definitely going to terminate the pregnancy. Ned and George could be happy, as far as she was concerned. Obviously George didn't have the same fears that Ned would stray. And he was so very over her that he could even come all the way to Europe just to spend time with his girlfriend, not to even bother calling her. So that was fine. Everything was great. Carlos was nice enough but she didn't need to pin her hopes on him, either. If December came and with it an offer to go to England, or just the whim to maybe look up her old friend Mick and see what he was up to, well, that was fine.

She made the offer to go with George and Bess to the airport expecting to be turned down, expecting George to make some excuse about how they'd be fine. But even after Nancy assured, wickedly, that it would be no trouble to her, Bess and George took her up on it. Bess let her ride in the front, all the better if she felt any nausea related to the baby, and at the airport they parted with the promise that Nancy would be back as soon as she could. Nothing but concern in their gazes, nothing but well-wishes and regrets that their visits had been so short. Bess promising that Nancy's child would be the most spoiled baby ever.

Nancy was puzzled and quiet the entire cab ride back to school. She was wearing an unremarkable outfit over a matched set of pale pink lace, just in case. Maybe Carlos had an apartment all to himself and a very welcoming bed and a bottle of wine at the ready.

_Maybe I was wrong._

Carlos greeted her at his door, wearing a button-down the exact same ice blue as his eyes, a chagrined smile on his face. He had made a valiant effort at dinner, but the remains were now smoking gently in the sink and he'd ordered out. He hoped Nancy liked Indian.

Nancy hadn't tried anything spicy since her worst bouts of morning sickness, but she gave him a confident smile and said everything would be fine. He'd rented a few movies, and invited Nancy to pick between.

None of them featured a boat chase.

She picked one, took the glass of wine he offered her, and managed to force down a few swallows before she drew herself a glass of water and worked on that the rest of the evening. The Indian food arrived and they camped out on the couch with the low coffee table pulled up close. Nancy gratefully took a large portion of naan bread, but Carlos insisted that she taste the forkful of rice he held to her lips.

_Maybe I was wrong._

Gradually she relaxed. She sampled some of the dishes he'd ordered, ones she'd never heard of before, and let herself fall into the familiar rhythm of the movie. He gave her a kiss before he went to the kitchen for more wine, the same taste on their lips, the hint of bitter juice, and he was gone.

Nancy drained her water glass and stood, still watching the movie. The mantelpiece above the entertainment center was full of small clay figurines, curved and bowed and minutely carved. She took a few silent steps toward it and stood, enrapt.

"My ex," Carlos said, standing in the doorway from the kitchen, silhouetted in its light, leaning against the frame and a study in relaxation. The first few buttons were undone on his shirt. She didn't remember him doing that. Her hand, fingers still cautiously spread, dropped back to her side. "Sure you do not want some more wine?"

The unpleasant feeling in her belly rose at that. She knew he wanted her to have some more, but she also was hoping she'd be able to keep herself from being sick, and more wine wouldn't help. "More water would be great," she said, scooping up the glass and bringing it to him. He looped an arm around her waist and brought her to him for a kiss.

"We should get back to the movie," she said when they parted, giving him a soft smile.

"You sure?" he asked, and when she nodded he gave her a disappointed sigh that ended in a smile. "All right."

More water didn't calm her stomach. She took a triangle of the bread and tore it into strips, ate those slowly and prayed while she kept her eyes glued on the screen. If only her phone would ring, if anything. But it didn't.

Then she excused herself as quickly as she could and reached his bathroom just in time.

Carlos was still on the couch when she came back, rubbing the back of her hand over her rinsed mouth. He looked over and raised a concerned eyebrow.

"I just," she looked down, knowing how it was going to sound, mortified that he had probably heard her. "I need to lay down for a few minutes and I'll be fine."

In all honesty she felt too shaky to handle the phone or call for a cab, and was hoping that the nausea would pass. Carlos jumped up and the movie continued on the screen, bright and abrasive to her sensitive eyes.

"Are you all right?"

"I will be," Nancy managed, along with a shaky smile. "I'm so sorry. It's been a while since I've had Indian." _And apparently the baby doesn't like it_, she didn't even think of adding.

"You can take my bed," he said, and at her horrified look continued, "I insist. Since I made you sick. I am sorry."

"No, no, it's all right. I can just," she said, helplessly, then trailed off.

"It will be fine. I will be on the couch."

--

At two o'clock in the morning she opened her eyes again. Her left hand trailed up the mattress with no resistance until it met the pillow.

New sheets. He had changed his sheets for her, made his bed. His comforter was a down-filled pillow of warmth and she was in her unbuttoned jeans and t-shirt. Definitely not the way he'd imagined it, not the way she had either. The harsh smell of cold and his scent, the unexpected scrape of hardwood floors and a rag rug, the rattle of pipes and the faint hush of unfamiliar voices coming from the television set in the living room.

He had promised to wake her and take her back to her room in time to get ready for class. Her watch ticked from the bedside table.

She rested her palm over her belly, the doubtful bundle of flesh, and her brow creased. Okay. She felt solid again, not like some jumbled slipping mass of writhing muscles and gurgled protests. She propped herself gently on elbows and then the heels of her hands, then the headboard, cringing when the mattress made any squealing protest, when the ridged skin of her palms whispered against the sheet.

Shoes and socks, found and put on with the careful concentration of a five-year-old, a hand brushed through her hair and watch back on her wrist. The necklace was still around her neck. She'd been meaning to take it off and jam it into a pocket of her jeans, but she had forgotten, and it had all been for moot anyway.

She went into the bathroom and asked a sleepy dispatcher for a cab to his address, then hung up, creeping slowly on thin soles and squeaking floorboards through Carlos's apartment, to see him drowsing with a forearm over his face, in the strobe of the quiet television set.

She left a note on his refrigerator and locked the doorknob before closing the door behind her.

Her room was freezing when she let herself in. She hopped out of her jeans and went to bed in stocking feet, the necklace still around her neck.

The necklace with Ned's engagement ring hanging from it.

She lost herself in a dreamless sleep, only once getting up to find and devour a packet of crackers. Her empty stomach growled her back to sleep.

She woke at her alarm, showered and dressed and brushed her teeth and hair. Just like any regular Monday. Just like any day. Her cell phone was off and quiet. He had probably called, wondering where she was, wondering why she'd felt she had to leave. A voice promising more nights on his couch and more crisp clean sheets and dances with his hand lingering at her waist.

Nancy called a cab, this one for the hotel.


	7. Chapter 7

She didn't get the same clerk.

Everything was easier at old-fashioned hotels, before credit cards and computerized reservations, but this wasn't going to be her day. Not so easy. Nancy came to the desk with a diamond earring in her palm and the explanation that she'd made friends with two American girls, and one of them had lost it. No, they had not left a forwarding address at the hotel, but Nancy suddenly remembered that they had invited a friend along. A male friend. Tall, dark, and very handsome.

Three minutes later she was in the service elevator, repeating his room number under her breath. The diamond earring was safe in her pocket and her reddish-blonde hair was tucked up under a ballcap, safely out of sight. She avoided the eyes of the chambermaid who entered the elevator with her cart, tugging the brim of her cap down as she walked out at the third floor.

Her heart was pounding when she found his room number, even moreso when she stopped in front of it and raised her fist to knock. Her stomach turned over lazily. Maybe it wouldn't be him. She bit her lip, knocked, and while she waited pulled the cap off and shook out her hair.

A moment of agonized waiting and she heard the lock click back. Ned stood in the doorway.

She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but this wasn't it. The covers were thrown back on one twin bed, a cup of coffee on the nightstand, the television turned on to some talking-heads news channel. Ned was dressed impeccably, gleaming and freshly shaved and missing only his shoes. His brown eyes were guarded. He stood back to let her in. Belt and wallet on the other, undisturbed twin bed, bathroom door open with the light on and a crumpled wet towel on the floor. The familiar scent of his aftershave.

Nancy turned around when he closed the door. "So," she said.

He inclined his head but didn't open his mouth, and her stomach made another lazy turn. According to her calculations she had been pregnant from the first night they had spent together, but this was the first time she'd known, the first time she'd been aware that she was standing in the same room with the father of her child. She half-closed her eyes.

"Are you dating George," she said, the words coming out in one breathless rush.

Ned looked her for a moment, then walked to his bed, brushing past her so close she could almost feel the warmth of his skin. Feel or imagine. He shook his head. "No," he replied. He shook his arms and buttoned his cuffs, then calmly regarded her, his face a mask.

"Why are you here?" She was fighting to keep her voice level.

"You want me gone?"

Barely an eyelash out of place. She wanted him with five o'clock shadow and rumpled hair, wrinkled shirt and an empty soulless expression in his eyes. Not this, not a collected and confident GQ model.

She reached for his desk chair, pushed it out with one hand and sat down. "I read an article about you," she admitted. "You're big now."

The faintest smile brushed across his lips, so quick she could have mistaken it. "So they say," he agreed.

"Why are you here?"

Ned glanced down at his watch. He kept his eyes on it as he replied, "I'm waiting for Sheri to follow through with her end of the agreement."

"Agreement?" Nancy's blood was ice water. All except the hot tears welling up just under her eyes.

"She came to me and told me that she was willing to tell the tabloids the baby she's carrying is mine. That, or I could make a settlement and never hear about it again. My lawyer should be calling me in a few hours."

"To tell you what?"

"I called her bluff. Ready, able and willing to provide DNA to prove I'm not the father."

"You didn't have to come all the way to Spain for that," Nancy said carefully.

"No," he agreed, shrugging. "I didn't."

"Is your lawyer my father?"

He didn't look at her when he shook his head. "No. After that game, everybody's looking for a way to get in on me, and this..."

"You didn't have sex with her?" Nancy asked softly.

"I told you I didn't," he replied levelly.

"You're so sure that baby isn't yours."

He nodded, then let his gaze rest on her face. Nancy drew in a long breath, feeling the sudden weight of her own belly. He couldn't tell, no one could, but still. And if she told him, that was the end of the anonymous clinic, their sin washed away in the penitence of blood.

"How long are you staying," she asked, not meeting his eyes, still feeling gaze on her.

He held his answer until her timid eyes found his. "A few more days," he said.

She nodded, exhaling explosively. "Okay. Okay. Here?"

"Yeah."

"Okay," she said, and walked out.

--

Three missed calls. By the time she listened to Carlos's voice mail, she'd missed the tentative lunch date he'd asked her about. She couldn't bear to return it, either, so she turned her phone off again and went to sleep. Bess and George were gone. Ned would have to leave Friday, to recover from jetlag in time to perform anywhere near up to speed for his game. She knew all this. Not that it meant she had to see him again.

She hadn't given him back the ring.

She bunched a pillow over her face and managed to sleep.

--

Ned was sitting at the bar when Nancy walked in. She slid onto the barstool next to his. "I'll have what he's having," she said, and when she took the first sip of her drink she tasted ginger ale, nothing else.

He gave her a half-smile. "Don't want to make another stupid mistake," he said. His collar was unbuttoned. He looked gorgeous in the dim light.

They made conversation, careful at first. She asked about his team and how they were doing and he gave her a calm reply, about the position he was playing and how different it all was. But some things had remained the same.

Of course, she told him, a faint smile on her own lips.

Of course, he parroted back, finishing his fake drink and ordering another.

He asked her about school and the internship position she had at the paper, and because she was being honest with him she heard herself mention Carlos with more and more frequency, each time watching his face carefully, waiting for a flash of temper that never came. When she confessed that she had been seeing him outside of work she was outright staring at him, waiting for the thrill of anger.

"He must be nice," Ned said mildly.

"You're not angry?" She could hear the desperation in her voice, but couldn't stop it. "Aren't you seeing anyone?"

"No," he said, the faintest smile on his face.

Nancy slid off her barstool, brushing against his arm as she did. "I could punch you right now," she said furiously.

"Why?"

"Because of that," she gestured expansively. "Because you should be mad right now."

"Is that because that's what you want me to be? Mad? In denial?"

"Obviously you are in denial, you're here," she said triumphantly.

He stared at her for a second, then shook his head and gestured for the tab. Nancy drew some euros out of her purse, but Ned left a large bill on the counter and walked a few steps away from her, toward the elevators. Then he turned back. "I don't want to fight with you," he said.

She followed him to the elevator and rode up with him to his floor, staring at him, seething. She followed him to his room and he locked the door behind them, then unbuttoned his cuffs, shrugged out of his jacket.

She was still standing just inside the doorway when he walked out of his bathroom, barechested and in boxers, and flicked off the light. She remembered seeing him that way, what felt like a lifetime ago.

"I don't want to fight with you either," she murmured.

He walked close to her, raised a hand and brushed it against her upper arm in a light, almost brotherly touch. "Then don't," he said.

When he walked away her heart unaccountably sank. He sprawled out on the bed closest to the television and crossed his ankles. She looked down, traced her fingertips over the rough coverlet of his extra bed. "No king?" she teased him.

"I've been sleeping alone," he said briefly, then flicked his gaze up to hers.

Nancy was quiet for a minute. Her heart started beating so loud that she was surprised Ned didn't comment on it. "I need to tell you something."

He kept his gaze steady on her face, then gestured for her to proceed.

"God, I hate you like this," she said. "Get up off that damn bed."

"And what?"

She made an impatient gesture. "Are you not feeling anything right now?"

"Are you?" He let his legs fall over the side of the bed and sat regarding her.

"I thought, you said you weren't giving up on us. And then you come over here with Bess and George and don't even tell me. Were you ever going to tell me you were here?"

"Why would it have mattered?" he asked. "Obviously you've moved on."

"And you're bitter," she said, and though there was triumph in her voice, her heart was sinking.

Ned sighed. "What do you want from me," he said wearily.

"I want you to _get up_," she said, walking over to him. His arms were dead weight in her grip and then she was hitting him. He blocked her blows but didn't retaliate, not until she reached for his face and his expression finally changed. He took her wrists in his hands and held them apart, and they struggled together impotently, until her knee came up. He threw her backwards and she landed on her back on the other bed, and he climbed on top of her and pinned her down.

"Are you going to calm down now?" he demanded, panting, his face red over hers.

"Why," she groaned, tears standing in her eyes. "Why did you do it?"

He released her wrists and sat back. "Nan..."

She pushed herself up and landed a few good blows on his biceps before he stood up to extract himself from her reach. She stood and they fought for a few minutes before he gained the upper hand again.

"I didn't," he said. "I didn't."

Nancy did start crying then, moving forward into his arms. After an initial flinch he took her into his embrace, and she buried her face against his shoulder.

"Ned, I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"I am too," he said. He swallowed, and she could hear it. "Forgive me?"

She tilted her face back to look into his and nodded, and before she knew it he was kissing her.

Kissing Carlos was different. He was good, but not familiar, she couldn't just fall into it the way she could with Ned, whom she'd kissed a thousand times. Nancy put her arms up around his neck, fingers curling at the nape, and when they broke apart they were still close.

Nancy closed her eyes and felt the rough link of a chain under her fingertips. She curled her fingernails up under and against his skin and he took a sharp breath.

"What," she breathed, tracing its line down his chest, until she reached the ring hanging from it.

"It's your wedding ring," he said, a half-smile on his lips.

"How long," she asked. "How long have you been wearing this." Her stomach was close to his and she felt it turn slightly.

"Since the morning after," he breathed. His face was close to hers, his hand lifting into her hair, against her jaw, his lips brushing against her cheek.

"Do you ever take it off?" She closed her eyes at the feel of his breath.

He shook his head and kissed her again, and the tears rose in her eyes and spilled over until his own cheeks were wet. He curved an arm around her waist and drew her toward the bed with him, and they pulled apart, his forehead against hers.

"What did you need to tell me," he whispered, tracing his fingertips along the skin at her collar.

She stared at the grey shadow along the wall, blinking another tear out of her eye. _Everything will change_.

She pulled her shirt off, revealing the cream lace, the chain around her own neck. His eyes lit on it immediately, his fingertips trailing up her chest to take it into his grasp. "How many times am I going to have to put this back on you," he whispered.

She rested her hand on his. "Wait," she whispered, her fingers sliding down to his wrist. "Please."

"Why," he asked, sliding his arms around her waist, against her skin. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder, listening to his heart.

"Make love to me first," she said finally.

He looked down, his fingers trailing over her skin, and licked his lips. "Have you been with anyone else?" he asked, not looking up.

She reached up and ran her hand through his hair. "No," she whispered.

"Still on the pill?"

She smiled, softly. "You don't need to worry about that."

Afterward, exhausted, she fell asleep against him, one bent arm up over his chest, his arm up around her waist with his palm against the small of her back. The slowing beat of his heart lulled her to sleep as he stroked her hair, over and over, his fingers slowing as he drifted off.

When she woke again she was nearly gasping for cooler air, her skin prickling with sweat where it touched his. He had pulled the blanket up over her, and she kicked out from underneath, pushing the blanket off and purring her contentedness as she tucked just the lighter sheet around her.

Ned stirred next to her, then opened his eyes. His fingers fumbled up over her until they reached her bare shoulder, and she met his gaze. "Hey," she whispered.

"Hey," he replied, reaching up for her. He kissed her softly, then pulled back, stroking his thumb down her cheek.

"Do you love me?"

He smiled, tracing his thumb along the edge of her mouth. "I can't seem to stop," he admitted.

"I love you too," she said.

"You had me fooled for a little while," he said.

A soft blush stained her cheeks. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you."

"I wouldn't have believed me either."

Nancy looked down, then pushed herself up to lean on the headboard. She reached behind her neck and took off her necklace, let the fine thread trail through her fingers until the ring alone was in her hand. She handed it over to Ned. He kissed her stomach, then reached for her left hand.

"No," she breathed. "Not yet. Have to tell you something first."

He pushed himself up on his hands, then leaned up to kiss her. "You in love with someone else?"

"No," she said.

"You want to marry me?"

Her breath caught in her throat. "Maybe you won't want to, now," she forced out.

He stroked her hair back from her face with his free hand, his left hand clenched around the ring. "What is it," he said, his gaze tracing her lips, the line of her jaw.

She reached out and took his chin into her hands, and he pulled his legs up underneath him, his hand still on her shoulder. When his eyes met hers she felt the same familiar surge of nausea, panic, but she forced it back and swallowed.

"Ned, I don't know how..."

"Just..." He traced his thumb down her cheek. "If you still love me, then we can do this."

"I do still love you," she said. "I'm pregnant."

Even in the dim light his face went chalk-pale. She reached up and touched him again, hesitantly, her eyes searching his.

"H-how," he managed.

"The usual way," she said, too afraid to smile.

"Me? With me?"

"Yeah with you," she said. "Remember a while back when you couldn't get enough of me?"

Ned ran his hand through his hair. "It was then? You said you were on the pill, did something, Nan..."

She leaned forward and hesitantly slipped her arms around his neck, hugged him close to her, relieved when he didn't push her away. "I don't know how it happened," she said. "All I know is that I am."

"Did you know? Did you know when you broke up with me?"

Nancy shook her head. "I didn't."

Ned slipped his arm around her waist. "But you know for sure, now."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know for sure. And it's up to you now." She released him and pulled back, her gaze down. "If you don't want me anymore..."

She felt his fingers on hers, and then the familiar weight of his ring again, back on her finger. "How long," he said.

"May," she replied, after a brief calculation, her sight blurring with relieved tears. "I think."

He kissed her and she started to cry again, wrapping her legs around him and holding him close to her. When they broke apart, breathing heavily, she rested her cheek against his shoulder.

"Ned, I never meant for this to happen."

He traced his fingertips down her cheek. "I know," he said. Then he chuckled to himself.

"What," she asked.

"So was it all those crazy hormones making you think I was with George?"

"She was acting so strange," Nancy replied, defensively. "She would talk about you and get this look on her face, and, well, it seemed like..."

Ned smiled, then kissed the corner of her mouth. "She wanted me to tell you I was here. Both of them wanted me to tell you I was here."

"Were you going to?"

"Probably," he admitted. "Do Bess and George know about your..." He made a faint gesture.

"They know I'm pregnant," she replied.

"Anyone else?" he asked, then swallowed, his eyes widening. "Your dad?"

She snickered, then traced her fingers down his cheek. "No one else," she reassured him.

He exhaled, relieved. "Good," he breathed. He slipped his fingertips down to stroke the flat of her abs. "I'm gonna be a dad?"

She nodded, stroking the back of his neck. "If everything goes well."

"Everything will go well," he said. "Nan, I love you."

"I love you too," she whispered as he laid her down again. When he rolled off her she pushed herself to her side and faced him, her arm looped over his side.

"Are you scared," she asked him, trailing her hand up and running it through his hair.

"Are you?"

"A little," she admitted. "A lot."

He reached out and drew her to him. "It's okay," he said. "It'll be okay."

--

Nancy escaped his grasp the next morning, early, kissed him and promised she would call later. Her thighs ached, she was trailing drowsed with sleep, but she forced herself to go back to her room and dress for the bus ride into the city. She dreaded seeing Carlos, and thought about putting the engagement ring back onto the necklace before she talked to him, but in the end she left it on, facing out, proudly.

"Nancy."

Black pants, white shirt, the barest blush on her lips and cheeks, and Carlos slipped into the seat next to her, radiating concern. "I did not hear from you," he said. "I was so worried, after the way you left."

She smiled at him. "You're such a sweetheart," she said.

"So you are feeling better?"

"I'm feeling much better," she told him, then sighed. She met his eyes for the first time. "I can't see you anymore."

"See me?" he repeated, but the expression in his eyes was shuttered.

She told him everything. She told him that she'd found out she was pregnant and she had reconciled with the father of her child, and if things had been different, if the timing had been better...

He gave her a weak smile and moved up to the front of the bus, where Kath was tossing her red hair. Nancy put her feet up on the seat and sat with her back to the window, her eyes closed, Ned's ring sparkling on her finger. Kath smiled at Carlos and Nancy let her palm rest over her belly.

She walked into the bright glass building listening to his music. Kath and Carlos walked ahead and Kath had the same faint smile, the glow that Nancy herself could remember from before. She didn't look at Carlos with any bitterness for what he had done.

Ned was back. She had never thought Ned would be back.

She didn't feel the same sharp, almost painful newness of her infatuation with Carlos. But this calm, the knowledge that Ned was back at the hotel waiting for her, that he had promised to be there, that was better. Better by far.

Susanne and Nancy were discussing the next assignment when Kath walked in briskly, her eyes sparkling. Nancy half-smiled at her, forcing the welling jealousy back down as Susanne caught Kath up on what they were talking about. Susanne wanted another conference covered, for Thursday, and Nancy had a sudden thought.

"Maybe Kath should take this one," Nancy said brightly.

Susanne turned to Kath. "Are you interested?"

"Sure," Kath said, taken aback. "Nancy?"

Nancy smiled. "Actually, I think I need to go to Scotland."

--

"When do you have to leave?"

"Friday." She could feel Ned shrugging over the phone line. "Sometime on Friday. I think my flight's in the afternoon."

"Could you possibly change it?"

"The time? I have to get back for practice..."

"No, to the Glasgow airport."

He took a breath before answering. "Your grandmother?"

"Props to you," she said. "If you want. And I mean that, we don't have to..."

He chuckled. "Yes we do."

--

Nancy had been to Douglas House before. Ned leaned forward when it came into view just around a line of rolling hills, his fingertips resting on the dashboard. "Wow."

Nancy darted a glance at him, smiling. "And all of it going to the National Trust when she dies."

Ned sat back, shaking his head. "I guess marrying you for your money is out."

Nancy took her hand off the gearshift to smack him lightly on the bicep. "Yeah, thanks."

A butler was waiting at the door to lead them to their rooms and help carry baggage. Nancy's grandmother, Lady Douglas, a petite woman with snow-white hair and faintly trembling hands, pushed herself up off a brocaded couch to greet them. She pressed a faint peck of a kiss onto Nancy's lowered cheek, her skin the texture of fragile wrinkled paper but the muscles beneath still strong. Ned offered his hand to her, and Nancy glanced back and forth between the two of them. Lady Douglas took Ned's hand and shook it firmly, studying him with her same blue eyes.

"Lady Douglas, this is my fiancé, Ned Nickerson," Nancy introduced them.

"I'm pleased to meet you," Ned said comfortably.

Lady Douglas smiled up at him. Ned towered easily a foot over her. "What do you do, young man?"

Ned smiled faintly. "I'm in college," he said. "Business management."

Lady Douglas nodded. "We're having dinner in an hour or so. I'm sure you two want to go freshen up and relax."

Nancy nodded. "Yes, ma'am," she said.

Lady Douglas's maid showed Nancy and Ned to a suite of rooms just down the hall, a pair of bedrooms joined by a small sitting room. The rooms had been shut up for a long time, Nancy could tell from the faint stale smell that still clung to the air. She unpacked a few things, then walked around the room, touching things lightly. Lace curtains, wedding-knot coverlet, the pine mantel above the fireplace. When she walked back into the sitting room, Ned was reclining on the couch, his eyes closed. Nancy gently pushed open a door at the back of the room and found a small bathroom, complete with a chilly bone-white claw-footed bathtub and speckled gold fixtures.

"So?" Nancy sat down on the couch and Ned opened his eyes.

"So, why exactly are we here?" He smiled to take the sting out of his words.

Nancy drew a fingertip along the smooth fabric at the back of the couch. "I don't know when we're getting married, and she doesn't get out that much. I don't know whether she'd be able to make it over, and I wanted her to meet you."

Ned smiled at her. "Soon," he replied. "If I had enough time to figure out how to make it legal over here, I would."

"You mean that?"

Ned drew the chain up from under his collar and let it rest over his heart. "It's not like we need anything else," he said.

"Oh, like your ring, you mean?" Laughing, Nancy climbed up onto his lap and rested her palms against his cheeks. "I don't know that they'll take that as a good answer."

Ned leaned forward and kissed her softly, then again. "It's a piece of paper," he murmured against her lips. "As far as I'm concerned we're already married."

Nancy swallowed the bitter comment she had the ugly flash of impulse to make, and smiled at him. "Love me?"

"Always," he replied, closing his eyes, his cheek against hers.

A soft knock and a gently cleared throat, and Nancy climbed off Ned, answered the door.

--

Ten minutes later Nancy wandered out into the garden and found her grandmother standing in front of a tree, hands on her slender hips, considering. Nancy joined her, gazing speculatively at the tree, then turned to her. "You wanted to see me?"

Lady Douglas tilted back the wide-brimmed sunhat she was wearing to look at her granddaughter. "Are your rooms all right?"

"They're gorgeous," Nancy replied. "I hope you didn't go to any trouble after I called."

"No trouble," Lady Douglas said, glancing again at the tree. Despite its height, the trunk was slender and gnarled. "It's nice to have visitors."

Nancy smiled, her hands clasped loosely at her waist. "I'm sorry we couldn't stay very long," she said.

"Well, school is important," Lady Douglas said. "And your young man is in school as well?"

"He's-- he's taking a little break right now," Nancy said, aware of how it sounded. "He had an opportunity he couldn't pass up."

Lady Douglas nodded sagely. "To play ball," she replied. At Nancy's sudden shocked look, her grandmother smiled. "I do watch television, dear."

After another few minutes, Lady Douglas walked over to a shaded bench and sat down, removing her hat. "Are you happy with him?"

Nancy nodded. "Yes."

"How long have you known him?"

"Since I was fifteen," Nancy said. "Well, we broke up a few times, but we've always gotten back together. We've been engaged since Christmas."

"And when do you think you're going to get married?" Lady Douglas ran her fingertips over the brim of her hat.

"Soon," Nancy admitted. "He has to go back to play, I'll be back home in December..."

"Hmm," Lady Douglas said. "Well then, I've always wanted to meet the woman Carson married. Do you like her?"

Nancy smiled. "Most of the time," she replied.

--

Over dinner and silver service and paper-thin china, Nancy watched Ned talk to her grandmother. He was charming, comfortable, completely at ease. Her grandmother told them all about the history of the house, the family, her own mother. Nancy propped her chin on her hand while the three of them had coffee in the sitting room. She could tell her grandmother approved.

Ned looked down at his cup of coffee and then glanced at Nancy, alarm in his eyes. She smiled and shook her head.

After a promise that the three of them would play cards the next night, Ned and Nancy joined hands and walked to their suite, Ned pulling the door closed behind them. Nancy stood on her tiptoes to give Ned a kiss.

"It's okay for me to have caffeine every once in a while," she whispered into his ear, her hand sliding up his chest to rest on his shoulder.

He smiled. "I guess I should have paid more attention in health class," he said. "I just..."

He reached down, hesitant, fingertips and then palm, low on her belly. Nancy closed her eyes.

"I just... don't want anything to happen to you," he said finally. "Either of you."

Nancy smiled and bowed her head. "I brought a book on pregnancy with me," she said. "If you want to read up on it. I'm beat, myself."

"Oh, sure," he said, looking at her with concern. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she told him, reaching up to draw his face down to hers for another kiss. "I think my grandmother really likes you," she told him.

"Hope so," Ned said. He leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers in a long, sweet kiss. "Go to sleep," he whispered.

Nancy left her door open while she changed for bed. The house was cold, but Nancy plugged in the space heater and found an extra set of blankets in her closet. She wrapped herself in one and walked out in stocking feet, gazing at Ned as he made a horrified face at the book.

"How far along are you, again?"

Nancy counted on her fingers, then walked over to the book and placed her finger at the appropriate line. Ned slipped his hand under hers and laced their fingers together. "So, we can have sex for quite a while..." He smiled up at her.

"Down, boy," Nancy said, patting him on the head. She leaned down and kissed his lips. "I'm going to sleep."

"Goodnight," he whispered, reaching up to stroke her hair.

Nancy left her door open slightly and curled up under the blankets, listening to the soft noises coming from their sitting room, the squeak in the couch springs when he shifted his weight, the soft sounds when he cleared his throat or turned a page.

She dreamed of him. She dreamed they were home, at Christmas, and they were stuffing stockings and wrapping a bike for their child. She had made gingerbread men, their child had put them out for Santa, and Ned was eating them while he fiddled with a screwdriver. Twin rings and the softness in his glance and Nancy felt such love, such boundless love, for him.

Nancy opened her eyes, looped her arms around the other pillow and hugged it close to her chest.

"Hey."

Nancy pushed herself up on her elbows and saw Ned in the doorway. "Hey," she replied.

He stood, barechested, in the blue dusk of deep night, out of the halo of warmth her space heater provided. Nancy threw the covers back and beckoned him in, and when Ned crawled into bed with her she tossed the covers back over the both of them and snuggled up close. Ned's feet were cold, Nancy's were bare, and she lay with her head against his shoulder.

"Have you had anything to drink while you were pregnant?" Ned looped an arm around her back.

Nancy shrugged. "A little," she said. "Mostly before I knew."

He cupped his hand over her hip. "Did you stop loving me?"

"That was the last thing you asked me," she whispered. She pushed herself back up onto her elbows and rolled onto her side so that she could look down into his face. She stroked her fingertips down his cheek.

"I thought I..." She sighed. "I thought I did," she finally whispered. "I was so mad at you. I thought you'd betrayed me and I thought things were over between us."

He reached up and took a strand of her hair between his fingers, twisted it around. "You didn't," he breathed. "You didn't stop."

"I guess not," she said, then smiled at his expression. "Don't be angry at me."

"For what," he whispered, his fingers still tangling in her hair.

"If I didn't still love you, I wouldn't be having your child," she said softly, then met his eyes.

He was quiet for a minute. "Glad you still love me, then," he said, and drew her face down to his.

--

The next morning Ned was back in his own bed, but the maid knocked at Nancy's door before entering anyway. Nancy tugged on a nightgown and pushed the rest of her clothes under the bed before answering, and was served tea on an elaborate silver tray in her lap.

Ned was already seated at the breakfast table when Nancy came downstairs. He gave her a slow smile, and Nancy returned it before she loaded her plate. Ned dropped his eyes and looked up again, just in time to see Nancy's grandmother smiling in his direction.

After breakfast her grandmother suggested that they visit a nearby golf course, and volunteered to stay in the cart while the two of them played. It was while Nancy and her grandmother were in the cart driving to the next hole that her grandmother suddenly asked. "Do you have a dress yet, and a veil?"

"Not yet," Nancy admitted.

"Your mother wore a veil at her wedding," her grandmother said thoughtfully. "A very fine lace veil. I wore it at my own wedding, and my mother wore it."

"I've seen the pictures," Nancy said, her eyes gleaming with interest. "It's beautiful."

"Would you want to wear it?"

Nancy gasped, staring. "You--?"

Her grandmother smiled. "I'll find it. Just let me know when you need it."

"Will you come to our wedding?" Nancy asked.

"Wouldn't miss it," she replied.

After dinner they played the long-promised cards, until the group had overdosed on coffee and Nancy's grandmother finally excused herself for bed. Nancy, who had taken only a single cup of coffee and had been keeping herself awake on iced water, accepted Ned's proposal that they go for a walk on the shores of the lake.

"You okay?" Ned asked, Nancy's arm through his, a light shawl over her shoulders.

Nancy nodded. "My grandmother offered to let me wear the family veil," she said. "Although strictly speaking I think we've forfeited my right to wear one."

"I'm sure she doesn't know that."

"Didn't you think it was odd, though, that she gave us adjoining rooms?"

Ned shrugged, smiling. "I try not to think about it."

The two of them walked quietly for a few more minutes, until Nancy looked up at Ned. "You're leaving tomorrow."

He nodded, not looking at her. Then he caught sight of a stone bench ahead of them and led her to it, sitting down and pulling her down next to him.

"Nan," he said softly, still looking down. He slipped his left palm against her stomach and she darted an anxious glance back toward the dimly lit windows of the house, making sure they were unobserved. When she was satisfied, she placed her hand over his and looked into his face. Ned pressed his lips together, his eyes still away from hers.

Nancy put her palm against his warm cheek and led his face toward hers. "Ned, what is it," she breathed.

He stroked her belly a few times, then reached up and placed his palms against her cheeks. He traced his fingertips down, forehead to chin, then kissed his fingertips and pressed them to her mouth. As his hands drifted back down Nancy leaned up and kissed him gently. "I'm not going anywhere," she whispered, her lips against his.

There was agony in his eyes. "I left you..." he said, looking at her mouth. He touched her ring. "Tell me you won't take this off again."

"I won't take it off again," she promised, searching his eyes.

He gave her a watery smile. "Nan, I love you so much."

"I love you." She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair, then leaned in close to him and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back hard, her face against his neck, his lips against the curve of her jaw.

"I keep remembering," he whispered. "I remember seeing you when you left to come here, and I thought--" He sighed, and Nancy shivered at the feel of his breath on her skin. "And now we're going to have a baby."

She nodded. "I'll never leave you again," she whispered.

"You can't," he whispered. "You can't. Please. Nancy." He kissed her.

The chilled wind blew against them until Nancy was shivering, and they went back into the house holding hands, a faint blush rising to her cheeks every time their eyes met. When they came back to their suite Ned lifted her into his arms and took her into his bedroom, swung the door shut with a jerk of his elbow and carried her to the bed.

"You know, I can't wait until we're living together and we can have loud and obnoxious sex," Ned said as he pulled his shirt off. Nancy had tossed the shawl onto a chair and was busy tugging her shirt over her head.

"Obnoxious?" Nancy raised an eyebrow, smiling.

"Jealousy-inspiring," Ned amended. "It just doesn't roll off the tongue as well."

Nancy tilted her head back. "Think maybe we could get married first?"

"Sure," Ned replied, gently tracing his fingertips over her skin before he took her into his arms and rested his mouth against the point of her shoulder. "If you insist."

"I do insist," she said. She kissed his cheek. "We insist. Sometime in the next six months, if you please."

"Definitely," Ned replied. He kissed her deeply. "How much do you love me," he breathed.

"As much as you love me," she returned, a soft smile lighting her features.

"Oh, is that all," he replied, smiling, as he laid her down on his bed.

--

Nancy woke up in Ned's arms, wrapped in a blanket. He was carrying her through the sitting room toward her own bedroom. He pulled back the covers with one hand and laid her down in her own bed, and she squirmed out of the blanket and looked up at him.

"Hey," he said, looking down at her.

In answer she extended her arms and beckoned him down to her. He sat down on the edge of the mattress and leaned down to hug her. "Nan, they can't find us together," he whispered into her ear.

She made a displeased noise and continued holding him until he gently extracted himself. "Ned," she whispered. She ran her hands through her hair and sipped in a long breath. "We're not going to see each other again until Christmas."

Ned let her draw him back down to her. Afterward he lay next to her until the rising sun was turning her bedroom walls the faint blue of dawn.

"Love you," Nancy said, drawing her fingertips across his shoulder.

"Love you," Ned replied, leaning over to drop a kiss on her forehead. "If you still want to wear that veil..."

"I do," Nancy sighed. She took him into her arms and held him close to her for a long moment, then released him.

After breakfast Nancy brought her duffel bag into the hallway and leaned down to give her grandmother one last hug. "We'll be sure to call you, when we know," Nancy said, smiling down at her.

"Thank you so much for having us," Ned added, shouldering his own duffel into a chair. Nancy's grandmother gestured for him to lean down, and gave him a hug as well. When he pulled back, she looked back and forth between the two of them.

"Don't forget," she said. "I don't trust that veil to post, anyway."

Nancy smiled. "All right," she said.

Saying goodbye to Ned was much harder. His plane was leaving first, so they stood together just outside his gate, their arms wrapped around each other.

"Remember what you promised me," Ned breathed. He rested his forehead on the crown of her head and looked down into her eyes. "I would do anything..."

She reached up and placed her palm against his cheek. "This is it," she told him. Then she gave him a watery smile. "Third time is the charm."

"Better be," he told her. "Tell me you love me."

"I love you," she told him. "I love you so much."

He closed his eyes. "I love you too," he said. "I worship the ground you walk on. You know that."

She stroked his cheek. "I know," she whispered.

He took a long breath but still didn't let her go. Nancy glanced around. Everyone else was looking at the ticket counter, waiting expectantly for the flight to be called. Nancy took Ned's hand and led it down to her belly.

"Everything's different now," she breathed into his ear. "I won't ever leave you again."

He smiled. "Okay," he said. He touched the tip of his nose to hers. "No more drinking, no more humoring lonely coeds, no more late night parties and smoky clubs."

"Not for you either," she told him sternly, her eyes gleaming. "Even if you lose cred with your crew."

He ran his hand over the back of her hair. "Like that even matters anymore," he whispered to her, leaning down to kiss her again. "You're the only thing that matters to me."

The stewardess called the flight, and Nancy pulled back, the first tear tracking down her cheek. Her eyes widened. "God, I don't want to let you go."

"I don't want to let you go either." Ned pulled her up off the ground, into his arms. "Come back home with me, we can run away and get married..."

Nancy smiled and another pair of tears slipped down her cheek. "Yeah," she said softly. She put her arms around his neck. "We'll live in your parents' basement and use a milk crate for a cradle."

Ned put her down and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "You have no idea how much I'm worth, do you."

She shook her head, beaming up at him. "And I don't care."

He laughed and leaned down to kiss her one last time. "God, I love you."

"Good," Nancy whispered.


	8. Chapter 8

"Mama," the little girl cried.

Nancy, sticky with exhaustion and sweat, took a seat next to the boarding gate at the Madrid airport. The girl was wearing a red sweater embroidered with smiling gold bells. Passengers waiting for later flights were rushing by with bags full of brightly-wrapped presents.

Nancy plugged her earphones into her ears and let it all wash past her. A heavily pregnant woman took a seat across from Nancy and gave her a tired smile, her palm resting over her rounded stomach.

Nancy smiled back and let her own palm rest on her belly.

The flight seemed to last forever. Nancy rolled her head to the side and stared out the window on the opposite side of the plane. Her ears ached from the airplane headphones. With a sigh she swept them off to rest around her neck. The same little girl was coming down the aisle, her hand secure in her mother's.

Nancy smiled at them both.

Ned would be waiting.

"Four more hours," the pilot announced, and Nancy rolled her eyes. Four hours and customs and the baggage return and then, and then she would be in his arms for the first time in months. Nancy pulled the fleece lap blanket up over her abdomen and nestled against her tiny pillow.

--

"Nancy!"

Once she saw his eyes, she could see nothing else. She climbed off the escalator and was immediately swept up into his arms. "Ned," she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on tight.

"Hey babe," he said, his eyes gleaming.

"Hey," she replied, closing her eyes as he leaned in close to her. He kissed her softly and she melted against him.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm doing great," she said. "Now."

Once they pulled up at her house, Ned just sat and stared at her. She saw his expression, flashed him a grin, and reached over to give him a kiss.

"What is it?"

"You," he said, touching her cheek. "Just you."

"Is everything...?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Everything's fine," he said. "We're set up for the beginning of next week. You just need to sign something, and show up. And, that's about it, really." He smiled.

"I'm proud of you," she said, kissing his cheek. "I thought people with Y chromosomes were incapable of planning."

Ned chuckled. "What can I say. Hannah helped a lot."

Hannah was waiting inside. She answered the door and grabbed Nancy for a hard hug. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," Nancy laughed. She put her bags down as Hannah pulled her inside.

"Come on in," Hannah called to Ned.

"No, really, I have to get home," he called back, apologetic. "Tomorrow?"

Nancy glanced back over her shoulder. At the expression on his face, she had to fight the urge to run back out to him. "Tomorrow," she told him. "I'll call you."

After she hugged Iris and her father, Nancy was rushed up to Hannah's old sewing room. "We only have a week," Hannah exasperated, bustling up the stairs.

"But we can do it, Hannah," Nancy said, holding onto the rail with a death grip. "I have faith in you."

The dress was almost finished. Ivory silk. Scoop neck and cap sleeves, empress waist with a champagne-pink sash, slightly flared ankle-length skirt ending in a short train.

"It's beautiful, Hannah," Nancy breathed.

Hannah blushed pink but gestured impatiently for Nancy to undress. Nancy hesitated for a second before she slipped out of her sweater and loose cotton pants. The round of her belly was pronounced now. She caught Hannah's gaze on her, and blushed herself. But then, Hannah had known since a month ago, when she had flown over and taken Nancy's measurements for the dress.

Nancy stepped into the gown carefully and then up onto the stool so Hannah could circle her, gaze intent, mouthful of pins. The edge of the hem was just above her toes. Hannah took a roll of lace and folded the skirt up an inch, held the lace up to it.

"I thought you were just going to leave the hem alone," Nancy asked.

The two of them heard a knock at the door, and Iris poked her head inside. "Oh, Nancy, it looks beautiful," Iris said. She stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind her. "I know your grandmother is bringing a veil for you, I was wondering if maybe I could put some lace on the hem. Just to, you know." Iris shrugged.

Nancy smiled. "That's a great idea," she assured her stepmother.

"How high are your heels going to be?" Hannah asked.

"Not that high," Nancy laughed. "I'll go tomorrow and find some, I promise."

Hannah nodded, distracted. "All right, all right. Go ahead and take it off, I don't have to make that many changes."

Without thinking Nancy slipped the dress down her arms and into Hannah's, leaving her in her underwear.

Iris's shocked gaze went from Nancy's swelled belly to her face.

Nancy sighed. "Give me a minute," she said, putting her shirt back on.

--

She was the only one drinking decaf coffee, after dinner. She did everything she could think of. Loaded it with artificial sweetener, creamer, blew on it to cool it, stirred it until her wrist ached and her heart rate had climbed another ten beats per minute.

"Ned and I are going to have a baby," she said, still staring at her coffee cup.

She had pulled on a baggy sweater, but she was sure it showed in the curve of her face. She heard her father draw in a breath, and lifted her eyes to meet his.

"You're sure?"

Nancy nodded. "Four months," she said quietly.

Carson nodded. "Okay," he said.

"We're keeping it," she said. "We didn't mean for this to happen."

"Is this what you want?" Carson asked steadily.

Nancy sighed, then smiled to herself. "Yeah," she said. "This is what I want."

"As long as you're happy," Carson said.

"We are," Nancy said.

--

"How did it go?" Ned asked.

Nancy took a long pull off her milkshake before answering. "As well as I thought," she said. "Dad didn't freak or have a heart attack."

"Yeah, my parents..." Ned shrugged. "They didn't throw me out of the house."

"You think they're gonna be happy for us?"

"Once the scariness wears off, maybe," Ned said, putting his arm over her shoulders. "When's your curfew?"

Nancy laughed up at him. "I don't want to go home yet," she said.

"I don't want to go home either," Ned said. "Do you want to go see the house?"

"House?"

Ned nodded. "The house where we're going to live on the weekends," he said, and dropped a kiss on the crown of her head. "Our first place."

"Okay," Nancy agreed, softly.

It was low brick, with soft overgrown bushes and a stone walk up to the wrought-iron rail and porch. Ned unlocked the door and flipped on the lights, and Nancy stepped inside, her hands shoved deep in her pockets.

The house smelled as though it had been shut up for a while. Ned linked his arm through hers. "Living room," he announced.

The living room was just a square of beige carpet, ending in a fireplace. Nancy smiled. "Right," she said.

Kitchen and dining room, laundry room, bath and bedroom. Upstairs was the master bedroom with the master bath, another guest bedroom. All unfurnished.

"I know it's small," he said apologetically. "But it's close to campus. And it's only on the weekends."

"It's perfect," she told him.

"I mean, we already have that other house--"

"I already said it's perfect," she told him, reaching up to give him a kiss. "So we need to find some furniture and get everything ready and then in January..."

"In January it'll be ours," he said. He leaned down and kissed her.

--

They were all standing in the church. Hannah had narrowed down the decorations to either lilies or roses. Iris had suggestions for candelabras and altar decorations and had already picked out the invitations and the programs. Bess and George were coming over later for their own final fittings. Nancy stood in the center of the aisle, her thumbnail in her mouth, listening to the bustle of voices around her.

The front door of the church opened and her father and fiancé walked in. Ned had his hands in his pockets and looked distracted. Her father gave her a smile and an arm over her shoulders. "How's it going here?"

"Good," Nancy said, glancing from her father to her fiancé. "I think we're about finished here. If you both agree that white roses are the way to go."

Carson nodded. Nancy had to call Ned's name twice before he looked up and met her eyes. Concerned, Nancy walked over and linked her arm through his.

"What's wrong?"

Ned shook his head quickly. "Nothing," he murmured. "I'm fine. White roses."

Nancy nodded. "White roses. When are we meeting your parents for dinner?"

"Six," Ned replied.

Nancy studied his face. "You look like your best friend just died."

Despite himself, he cracked the hint of a smile. "I'm fine. Dad and Mom are pretty much decided on where they want the reception to be. And I..." He shook his head.

Nancy leaned up and kissed his cheek. "Let's go out after dinner."

He finally looked at her, reaching up to cup her face in his hands. He studied her eyes for a long moment, then leaned forward and kissed her on the mouth. "Sure," he whispered against her lips.

Bess was trying on her dress when Nancy went upstairs. Hannah was pinning up the hem on her deep red satin dress. "Looks great," Nancy told her.

Bess smiled. "Thanks," she said. "Good choice, this color looks fantastic on me."

Nancy smiled. "Come see me when you're finished," she said. "I'm going to go lay down for a while."

George was the one who knocked hesitantly on Nancy's bedroom door and poked her head inside. Nancy smiled and propped herself up on the pillows.

"You doing okay?"

"I'm doing fine," Nancy said. "I think it's just all the planning. I have an entire morning to pick out furniture for the house we're going to have at Wilder, and that's it. Everything else is already earmarked for wedding things."

"As long as you left time for your bachelorette party."

Nancy laughed. "It'll have to be pretty tame."

"Not necessarily," George laughed.

Bess peeked in. "Hannah's ready for you," she told George. "How does it look?"

Nancy and George looked at Hannah's nearly finished product. "Looks great," Nancy said. "I almost wish I was wearing that instead."

"My turn," George said, and once she walked out Bess went over to the bed and perched at Nancy's feet.

"You guys are actually planning on giving me a bachelorette party, even with...?" Nancy gestured to her rounding belly.

"Just because you got knocked up doesn't mean you can't have a little bit of fun," Bess told her. "Granted, sober, smoke-free fun that probably doesn't involve waking up in some guy's limo."

"You just want me there because I'm the guaranteed DD," Nancy accused, smiling.

--

Ned's parents.

Nancy was dreading seeing them. She had chosen a black cashmere sweater, black pants with a thin pinstripe, low sensible heels, Ned's ring on her finger. She nervously twisted it, staring down.

"Nan, it's fine."

Nancy took a long breath and sighed it out. She dusted her palms over her thighs. "Yeah." Then she glanced over at him. "How did you say they took the news?"

Ned reached over and took her into his arms, and she closed her eyes. "Calm down," he said. "They aren't mad at you. They aren't mad at either of us."

"Still," Nancy whispered, into his shoulder. "I love you."

Ned reached out and opened the door. "They do too."

The only hint they gave that they knew, was in the eyes. Their conversation was the same. The same smiles. They chatted about the wedding but not the reason for its hastened occurrence.

"Spain was nice?"

"Spain was great," Nancy said, passing the bowl of mashed potatoes to her fiancé. "Did Ned tell you about our trip up to Scotland?"

"How could I not tell my parents about your charming grandmother," Ned protested, smiling.

"And the veil," Edith said, without a trace of sarcasm or irony in her voice. "It sounds lovely."

After dinner and dessert and decaffeinated coffee, the only reference to Nancy's condition, Nancy and Ned begged off, saying they desperately needed some time off from wedding plans.

Nancy blushed when the porch light went off behind them. "So they're not waiting up, then," Nancy murmured under her breath.

"I'm a big boy," Ned said, puffing his chest with false pride, and Nancy had to laugh. "Where did you want to go?"

"Hannah's been staying at my parents'," Nancy replied. "All her sewing things are there, and she's been working on the dresses... So our house is free. Well, the house that will be ours in a week."

"So, let's do that," Ned said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Rent a movie, make out..."

Nancy lightly smacked his arm. "Right. Drugrunners and terrorists, here we come."

She let him pick the movie, and it did feature explosions and a predictable plot. Before he cued it up, Nancy went into the kitchen and dug an oversized bowl out of the cabinets, then microwaved some popcorn.

Ned walked up behind her and looped his arms around her waist. "You okay?"

"Are you?" she asked, turning to see his face. She rested her palm against his cheek.

He closed his eyes. "Yeah," he murmured. "I'm all right. Now."

"Was it something my dad said?"

His eyes still closed, Ned leaned forward, until his forehead was resting against her temple. "What makes you say that," he whispered, his breath warm against her skin.

Nancy drew in a slow breath. "You seemed distracted when you were at the church earlier."

Ned's face tightened for a moment, but then he opened his eyes and smiled at her. He drew his fingertips down her cheek. "Your father is very, very protective," Ned said. "And he wants to make sure that his little girl is going to be taken care of."

Nancy paled. "What...?"

Ned tilted his head and kissed her softly. "He loves you," Ned whispered. "I love you too."

Nancy couldn't keep her mind on the movie. She slumped against the arm of the couch, Ned's head in her lap, dipping into the popcorn bowl occasionally. When the credits were rolling, Nancy smoothed Ned's hair back from his temple, then planted a kiss there. He turned lazily, until he was looking up into her face, and smiled. Then he slipped his palm under the hem of her sweater, pushed it up gently, and planted a kiss just above her belly button.

"Little one's been moving today," Nancy told him, her eyes sparkling.

Ned's eyes went round with wonder. "Now?"

Nancy shook her head. "Maybe if you play nice..."

They went to bed on crisp clean sheets in their blue bedroom, with nervous fingertips clasped over her belly. Despite her nightshirt, Ned's fingers were curved beneath, over her bare skin. She could feel his heart beating against her back.

"Do you love me?"

Ned shifted and Nancy fell onto her back, looking up at him. "Of course I do," he said.

"It's not 'of course,'" she said, then looked away. "I can just see my dad telling you he'll kill you if we don't go through with this."

"I can neither confirm nor deny..." Ned began, then smiled. "All I want is to make you happy. I want you to have this baby and then the three of us will live together..."

"And then what?" Nancy's fingers moved in a restless curve over the sheet. "I'll still have another year of school."

Ned nodded. "Maybe we should ask Hannah to move in with us," he said. "Be our housekeeper. Take care of the little one."

"So it's that simple?"

Ned kissed her again. "What makes you think it isn't?"

Nancy shrugged, then laughed despite herself. "Maybe after next week I won't feel like everyone's staring at me. Like everyone knows and they're all..."

"What they will know is that we love each other," Ned said. "That we have a life, and a child, together, and that's all that matters."

Nancy picked up Ned's hand and led it to her stomach. "Feel that," she said. "Right there."

"Nancy," Ned breathed, as their child moved between them for the first time.

--

Two nights before their wedding, Ned stopped by Nancy's before his friends took him out for his bachelor party.

"You behave yourself," she said to him. Black silk shirt. She reached up and slipped her fingertips down the collar. His cheek gleamed smooth. His hair shone. New gold watch around his left wrist. She wanted very badly to break the vow they had made to each other, the vow to resist going to bed with him again until they were married.

"Only if you do," he returned. Nancy was wearing a soft rose-pink shirt, black miniskirt and opaque tights, ankle boots. Her generous cleavage was covered in a web of silver chains. Her hair fell in wavy red-gold curls down the back of her neck.

"Yeah, but you can drink," she said. "I can't."

"And I won't," he said. He folded his hands around hers. "I promise."

Her lip curved up in a half-smile. "Have one," she said. "I don't want you complaining about how controlling I am before we're even married."

"One," he replied. "One beer. But that's it."

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, and he leaned into it, his fingertips curving against the back of her neck.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

At least twenty girls were already at the restaurant when Nancy arrived, already in various stages of intoxication. Bess was in an electric blue minidress which matched her eyes. George was ravishing in a plunging black number. Most of the girls didn't know about Nancy's condition, so she sipped ginger ale and water, ordered virgin strawberry daiquiris.

Ned was probably on the other side of Chicago, in a strip club.

The club was smoky and dense with people, most of them dressed in red and green. One particularly drunk guy was slumped in the corner, wearing a santa hat. Nancy felt in her pocket for her phone.

Miss u, Ned had texted her.

Nancy's heart lifted. She took a long sip of her drink and propped her chin on her folded hands.

"Nancy, you'd better get out here and shake it," Bess called, glowing, beaming.

Nancy did all the stupid things on the bachelorette party list, cajoled by the slurred urgings of the other girls. The guys she approached for drinks all snapped their fingers and expressed their dismay that she was taken, and every one of them bought her a drink, which she dutifully passed on to other girls. She bit a button off a guy's shirt, talked three guys into giving up their phone numbers, collected five business cards and a glow-in-the-dark condom before the girls were drunk enough to leave her alone. When she was texting Ned a reply, during a break from the dancing, the baby kicked again.

With every guy she danced with, Nancy felt each day since that last night she had shared with Ned in Scotland all the more acutely.

--

The rehearsal dinner was long. Nancy gave her attendants gold necklaces with delicate star charms. They had champagne toasts and Nancy kept glancing over at her father, who was chatting and laughing with Ned's parents.

"What do you think they're talking about?"

Ned took her chin in his hand. "How late I came home this morning."

"How late were you out?" Nancy smiled.

"Well, the bar closed at two and we were still going strong," Ned admitted. "You?"

"I think we hit a pancake house at five a.m., but I could be wrong," she replied. "After my fifth ginger ale, everything is a blur."

"Tell me about it," Ned said with mock gravity. He leaned close to her, put his mouth next to her ear. "I've missed you."

"We promised," Nancy said, but her eyes fluttered shut, her lips parted softly. "We just have to wait one more night."

"Hardly seems worth it, it's not like I don't know how it would feel..." He pressed his lips to her collarbone, then pulled back. Nancy was flushed, the color high in her cheeks, her breath audible.

"You have to stop that," Nancy murmured, just loud enough for him to hear, and then her sapphire blue eyes opened, and then Ned lost his own breath, the expression on her face, the glowing beauty in the curve of her cheek. "You have no idea how much I just want to go away with you right now."

Ned shook his head. "I think I do," he said. He traced the backs of his fingers over her cheek.

--

The next morning she woke, alone for the last time, in the same bedroom she had occupied since childhood. She wasn't even fully unpacked from Spain. Another thirty minutes before her alarm, but her pulse was already high with nervousness, at the thought of the ceremony. Hannah had pressed the gowns one last time; they were standing in the sewing room. Nancy dragged a quilt off her bed, wrapped it around her, and walked down the hall.

Her dress was beautiful. Straight finished seams and yards of tulle. She traced her fingertip down the curve of the neckline. Satin sandals. Bess and George would be coming over for their dresses, flame-red, full flowing skirts.

_Twenty-four hours from now, he will be mine._

Nancy's left fist closed the ring tight to her finger.

She had never seen so much of Ned's parents in so short a time. They met for breakfast, both their sets of parents, the attendants, the family members who had come from out of town, even Nancy's grandmother. The veil fit the dress perfectly. Nancy forced down a slice of toast and a scrambled egg, her uneasy stomach due to nervousness, not their child.

"Excited?"

Nancy had grown tired of hearing that question, but she smiled dutifully and dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a paper napkin. "Sure am," she said. "Are you?"

"I love a good wedding," Ned's aunt said, and beamed. "You two make such a beautiful couple, too."

Nancy smiled. "Thanks." She looked over at her fiancé, who smiled at her.

--

Ned had his head down.

He was standing at the front of the quietly buzzing church, at the white-swathed altar, in a shaft of dying winter sunlight, his brown hair gleaming gold, his dark eyelashes thick on his cheek. He wore a red vest under his black tuxedo jacket, a white rose at his breast.

Nancy gathered the thick folds of her skirt between her fingers and shook it softly, silently, peering into the church. Bess waited until George had taken two steps, in time with the swelling organ music, then started behind her, a silver chain gleaming around her right ankle, her lips flame-red and curved up in a smile, her creamy shoulders smooth under her flawless hair.

Nancy took a deep breath.

"Everything's going to be fine," Carson said, offering his daughter his arm.

Nancy pressed her pink lips together, then met her father's eyes. "Daddy, are you still proud of me? Even after...?"

Carson smiled. "You know I am," he said. "Ned's a good man. I wouldn't let you do this if I didn't think that."

Nancy finally allowed herself a small smile. "Okay."

"This is what you want?"

Nancy pressed the door open the slightest inch with her trembling fingertips, and the shock of Ned's gaze meeting hers was electric. She drew in a long breath, then nodded. "This is what I want."

Ned took her hand when she finally reached the altar. His fingers twined around hers. "Who gives this woman?" the pastor asked.

"I do," Carson replied.

"We are gathered here, in the sight of God and these witnesses, to celebrate the union of this man and this woman," the pastor began, and Nancy was acutely aware of her breath and her pulse and Ned breathing next to her. The slight sweat where their skin joined.

"Do you promise to love this woman, to honor and cherish her, through good times and bad, sickness and health, riches and poverty, happiness and sadness, until death shall you part?"

"I do," Ned said, and Nancy released a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding.

"Do you promise to love this man, to honor and cherish him, through good times and bad, sickness and health, riches and poverty, happiness and sadness, until death shall you part?"

"I do," Nancy said, her lips trembling, and she released an involuntary giggle at the end. "I do."

Mike and Bess handed over their rings. "With this ring, I thee wed," Ned repeated after the pastor, sliding the ring he had worn next to his skin for those months onto her finger, his gaze flicking up to hers at the end, and the tears Nancy had sworn she wouldn't shed rose at the expression in his eyes.

"With this ring," Nancy began, sliding the ring over his knuckle, and the first tear streaked down her cheek. "With this ring, I thee wed," she finished, and he took her hand, held it firmly.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife," the pastor said, and smiled. "You may kiss the bride."

Nancy's veil was already pushed back, over her red-gold hair. Ned put his arm around her waist, pulled her to him, kissed her gently. She could feel the smile on his lips. When he released her, she laughed, gazing up into his eyes.

"We did it," Ned whispered to her.

The recessional began and she floated on his arm through the sea of beaming faces, to the doors of the church. Once they stepped out they were in an extended wash of flash bulbs, shouting reporters. Ned made no comment but to smile.

The reception was packed with people. The ceremony had been quiet, but here was a good deal of Ned's frat house, the Emerson sports teams, his fellow professional football players, his entire family, Nancy's entire family, Nancy's friends from Wilder, their high school graduating classes. And, Nancy was surprised to see, some of the powerful people her father knew. Judges, fellow attorneys, politicians.

After they cut the first slice of cake and fed it to each other, Ned kissing the bit of icing off her cheek, Nancy had a champagne cocktail and then switched to sparkling white grape juice. Ned's parents had rented an enormous banquet hall. White-suited attendants were carving meat, serving punch, restocking trays. After the full meal, of which she managed to eat but little, she and Ned went to the floor for their first dance.

"You look beautiful," he breathed, gazing down into her glowing face, his arms around her waist, her arms up over his shoulders.

Nancy laughed. "You don't look half bad yourself, Nickerson."

"I was worried about whether the black satin lapels were the way to go," he said, smiling. Then he leaned down and kissed her, long and lingering. "I can't believe we're actually married."

"I can't believe how many people are here," Nancy said, looking around. "Did we invite all of Chicago, or did they just hear about the open bar?"

"Both."

The sun was well below the horizon when Nancy set out looking for Bess and George, who were unmistakable in their dresses. The bouquet had been thrown and the garter tossed. At her request Bess went to the car and retrieved Nancy's bag, and then the cousins followed her to a back room, so she could change.

"So you're ready to go?"

Nancy nodded, unbuckling one of her satin shoes. "Ned won't tell me where we're going."

"You haven't packed for the honeymoon yet?" Bess asked.

"We're not leaving until after Christmas," Nancy replied. "The day after. So if you guys want to hang out..."

George laughed. "I think we'll wait until you get back from wherever you go, if you don't mind."

"It's up to you." Nancy stood. She was wearing an ice-blue camisole and matching cardigan, a long charcoal-grey skirt, and thick-soled boots. "How do I look?"

"Great," Bess said, and George nodded in agreement. The two of them hugged her. "Now go knock his socks off."

A silver limousine took them toward Chicago. Ned was in black, and looked devastatingly handsome. As soon as they were alone Ned took her face in his hands and kissed her, slow and soft. When they pulled apart, Nancy's eyes fluttered open, and she stared into his face.

"I love you," she told him.

"Love you too," he whispered, then kissed her again.

The hotel was gorgeous, all gilt and polished wood and parquet floors. They bypassed the front desk and made out in the gleaming brass elevator. After they found their room, they waited for a tour group of giggling schoolchildren to leave, and then Ned lifted her into his arms.

"Is this it?" Nancy asked softly, looping her arm around his neck.

"This is it," he nodded, and pushed their door open. "It has been so very long."

A carpet of red rose petals led to the bed, to the candlelit wood and brass. He put her down there and kissed her again, and she pulled him down to her, feeling her heart beating overfast in her chest. His fingertips slid down her fresh-scrubbed cheek.

Nancy gasped in a breath when he pulled back. "Let me get out of this," she breathed.

Ned kicked his shoes off. "That's the best idea I've heard all day."

Nancy's bag was already in the room. She had packed a red slip and she put that on, making a face as her hair refused to obey her command to stay down. The baby moved and Nancy put her palm on her stomach, resting until they were both relaxed. The doctor she and Ned had visited earlier in the week had shown them how small the child was, the minute limbs fluttering beneath her skin. Despite her denial, the baby showed every sign of being healthy.

Nancy cupped her hands just beneath her abdomen, cradling it, and dropped her chin to her breastbone. "I know you need your exercise," she said softly, smiling, "but I do too, so please, just for tonight, go to sleep, because I think I'll cry if you're awake while we're having sex."

Nancy opened the door and switched out the light. Ned had lit the candles standing around the room, and was standing at the bedside, dressed only in black boxers. He looked up. Nancy's eyes traced the lines of his muscles, more defined than ever, up to his square firm jaw, the warm honeyed flesh, the golden ring on his left hand. His dark brown eyes, waiting to meet hers.

She slid forward on bare soles over the plush carpet, merlot silk over the curve of her upper thighs, perfect rounded toenails polished gleaming silver. She pushed an errant strand of hair behind her left ear and watched the candlelight flicker over his skin, her engagement ring glowing next to her french-tipped manicure.

Afterward she ran her hand through her tangled hair. "Come here," she whispered to him, and he dragged the covers up with him as he rolled back to her and wrapped her in his arms. She nestled her face against his chest, and they were quiet, rising and falling with the expand of breath. He closed his eyes, his heart slowing, comforted by the feel of her naked and slow against him. The thick gold band on his finger and his child, their unborn child, between them.

"Hey," he whispered, pressing his lips against the crown of her head. "You okay?"

She nodded, her eyelashes fluttering against his chest. Then he felt her smile. "Way, way better than okay."

He slipped his palm up against her cheek, tilted her face back, and she met his eyes in the flickering darkness. He kissed her slowly. When he pulled back Nancy reached up and ran her fingers through his hair. "I love you," she told him, searching his eyes. Then she leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his ear, and he closed his eyes and shivered at the feel of her breath. "I missed you so much."

"I love you," he murmured against her skin.


	9. Chapter 9

Nancy stretched, then winced, reaching down to rub a palm over her belly. "Your child's hungry," she called down the stairs to her husband. "Bring double."

"Be right there," he called back.

Nancy pushed Ned's pillow behind hers and propped herself up on the headboard. They had been in their new place for a week. She was curled under quilts from her father's and in-laws' houses, on Egyptian cotton, and this was the last weekend they would be spending together before classes began again.

She had fallen back half-asleep, between the child's insistent kicks, when Ned pounded up the stairs, a tray in his hands. "All right, double for junior," he said, placing it next to her.

She smiled at him. "Are you going to hire a maid for me, once I'm back at school? Cause I've really gotten used to this being waited on hand and foot business."

Ned smiled back at her and snatched a slice of toast. "We'll see," he said.

She had bought her first maternity top. Loose, long-sleeved, but it curved around her belly instead of flowing over it. When Ned took the breakfast dishes downstairs, she put it on and looked at herself in the mirror, in silhouette.

She was actually starting to look pregnant.

She blushed, faintly, and let her palm slide over the front of her stomach. Ned's child.

He walked up behind her and put his arms around her waist. "What do you want to do today?" he asked, nudging back her hair to rest his lips against her ear.

She closed her eyes, the faintest blush rising in her cheek, her lips curving up in a smile. "Can we just, can we just stay like this," she said, resting her hands over his. "I feel like I'll never be in your arms long enough."

He laughed then, softly, and pulled her back to bed with him, traced his fingers over her cheek. "Five months," he said. "Until I'm graduated."

She laughed. "Anything other than five months," she begged. "Four months, three weeks and two days, I don't care, just... not five months."

"Not five months," he agreed. "Besides, we'll see each other every weekend. It won't be so long."

She kissed him. "Still too long," she said lightly.

He rested his hand over her belly. "I'm never away from you," he said. "Not now."

After lunch with his parents, when Ned and his father were on the couch watching the game, Edith took her upstairs. "I thought maybe you'd like a few things," she said, pulling open the door of the spare room.

Walking in was like walking back in time twenty years. Edith seemed to have saved every piece of clothing Ned had ever worn, bibs and cloth diapers washed pale and sunhats, blocks and fire trucks and plastic dinosaurs. Nancy traced her fingers over a pair of tiny brown corduroys, awed.

"You don't know whether it's a girl or a boy yet," Edith said, the slightest question in her voice, and Nancy raised her eyes to her mother-in-law's. Edith only looked happy, willing to help.

"We don't know yet," Nancy replied, smiling. "I think we'll keep it that way. I want to be surprised." Then she looked down, at her smooth fitted top. "Do you want...?"

Edith rested her palm gently on the round of Nancy's belly, and smiled. "I'm glad," she told her daughter-in-law. "You know that, don't you?"

Nancy blushed, again, cursing the hormones that kept her so close to the faint tremblings of her heart. "I, I wasn't sure," she said. "I know, that it would have been better, to have waited..."

Edith chuckled softly. "Ned loved you since the day he met you," she said. "His father and I always looked forward to having you in our family. Maybe you two did jump the gun a little, but you're here now, and..." she smiled. "And now I'll have a grandchild to spoil the daylights out of."

Nancy hugged Edith. "Thank you," she said. "You know, you were always like a mother to me."

"You certainly needed it," Edith said. "With all the trouble you managed to get into. Now. Do you have a receiving blanket yet?"

--

They walked through the video store hand-in-hand, through the new releases first. Ned fixated on shiny boxes, action-adventure movies. Nancy looked for the psychological thrillers she'd managed to miss while she'd been preparing for her trip.

"Please?" she asked, bringing him one.

"You promise to grab my arm and act like you're scared at least a few times?" he asked, and she laughed.

She kept her fingers laced through his even as they maneuvered through the checkout, piling bags of gummi bears and Raisinets and microwave popcorn onto the counter. She hadn't had salad in weeks. Everything she wanted, craved, was terrible. Corn chips and ice cream with chocolate syrup and thick cheeseburgers. She teased him that the child was definitely his, with its bottomless appetite for junk food and insatiable appetite.

"Maybe he's just taking after my impeccable eating habits."

"Maybe she's just stocking up because she knows it's all salads once she reaches the age of fifteen," Nancy teased back. She would be happy with either a boy or a girl, and so would he, but she knew he wanted a son.

"You think he kicks like a girl?"

"She's just taking after her Aunt George," Nancy laughed.

Ned swept her up into a hug, in the parking lot. "God, I love you."

"You'd better," she said, her feet dangling above the ground. She kissed his cheek. "Take me home."

She loved saying those words. She loved walking into the house and knowing it was theirs, even if only on the weekends, between classes and homework and games, and soon, doctor's appointments and baby showers. She loved the thought that by the summer they would be three instead of two.

"What are you thinking," she asked, gazing over at him as he fast-forwarded through the previews, a bowl of warm popcorn between them.

"I'm thinking that it will be the hardest thing ever to go back to school without you," he said. "I'm going to be so lonely. At least you'll have my son—"

"Daughter," she said, a smile flirting with her lips, but her gaze was sympathetic.

"To keep you company," he continued smoothly. "I only have a football team, and believe me, they aren't usually up for cuddling on the couch."

"Well, just out of fairness," Nancy said, pursing her lips, "you can carry our next one."

"You are so generous," Ned said, sliding his arm around her shoulders. "I was getting tired of being able to see my abs, anyway." He lifted his shirt and gazed down at his navel.

Nancy, laughing softly, traced her fingers over the hard muscle, then started tickling him. "What are you trying to say, Nickerson?"

He protested, but gently, laughing, until she was on top of him, bathed in the warm glow of the television. "That you're beautiful," he told her, still gasping his breath back, and looked up into her eyes. "And I'm going to miss you."

She leaned down and kissed him, softly. "I'm going to miss you too."

--

He was still asleep when she woke.

She lay on her side and blinked slowly in the darkness. Waking up next to him was still new, still enough to make her heart skip a few beats. Their child kicked, faintly, and she slipped her palm over her belly.

She knew it would be ridiculous to transfer to Emerson just to share his last semester. She knew it would be, but she still daydreamed about it. A little over four months, he would be graduated and she would have their child, and their relationship would no longer be relegated to school breaks and weekends, as it had since nearly the beginning.

Everything would change.

She smiled to herself. Everything already had changed. She was finished with change, for a while. Being married to a man who was now described as an up and coming football star was enough. Being a wife, being a mother...

He made some faint noise and reached for her clumsily in the darkness and she allowed him to take her into his embrace. He murmured, content, as she nestled against him.

"Love you," he whispered, and she repeated it in the same breath, her arm curled around him.

--

"This is the cutest thing I've ever seen."

Nancy looked down at the outfit Bess was holding up, all pink and frills and matching tights. "At least it's the right color."

"So this is out?" George held up a miniature blue baseball uniform complete with a tiny soft ballcap.

Nancy smiled. "Just throw it in the cart," she said. "I'm sure they have cross-dressing day at preschool."

"At least with the shower this weekend you'll be able to get everything settled in your place before we're in class again."

"Heh. Maybe. I can't believe..." Nancy ran her hands through her hair. "I'm married and I have to spend another year and a half in school before I can actually live with my husband."

Bess and George exchanged glances. "Wow," Bess said softly.

"What?"

"You're going back to school," George said. "With everything."

"Why wouldn't I," Nancy said. "It's not like I'm incapacitated, and the baby isn't due until May anyway."

"And you think you're going to want to come back to class with a three-month-old baby to take care of?"

Nancy stopped pushing the cart, her forearms resting on the bar, and gazed, distracted, at the floor. "I don't know," she finally replied. "I hadn't thought about it. Ned'll be out of school. But—but I have to finish this degree. Otherwise, it's like... like all of this was for nothing. Spain and..." She shrugged.

"How was it for nothing?" George asked, tossing a soft blue teddy bear into the cart. "It's not... I mean, it's not that I don't think it'd be great if you were at school, it's just that..." She smiled. "You were a great detective before you even applied to college. You'll be a great detective whether you have a degree or not."

"That's true," Bess added. "Do most newspapers care if you have a degree?"

"I don't know," Nancy replied. "I kind of doubt it."

George laughed. "All you have to do is convince Ned to not sign again, and you could be living with him in May."

"And we'll be able to come over and hang with you guys," Bess said. "And play with the baby."

Nancy smiled and looked at George. "Is that what you had in mind?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping you two could get a pool table," she admitted, and Nancy had to laugh.

--

"Ned."

"Hmm?"

She kissed him, slow and sweet, and he ran his fingers through her hair, brushing it back. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," he said, gazing up at her from their bed, tracing his fingertips down her cheek.

She paused, even then, and he slipped his arms around her and rolled her to her side, turning to face her. "Nan, what's wrong."

"After," she began, gazing at him. "After the baby's born, and you're graduated... what if I took a little break from school, while you're getting settled with your new job. I just, the idea of leaving the baby with someone else all day..."

"You mean take some time off, go back and finish later?"

Nancy nodded. "Something like that," she said. "What do you think?"

A slow smile was lighting his face. "If that's what you want."

She leaned forward and kissed him. "You have a terrible poker face, Nickerson."

"I have an excellent poker face," he told her, returning her kiss. "But we're not playing poker, we're talking about our son."

"Daughter," she corrected him lightly. "So it would be okay?"

"To come home and find my wife and son waiting for me after a long day of work?" he asked, cutting off her mild protest with a kiss. "What could be wrong about that? Besides, we can fashion some sort of sling for you to carry him in while you're chasing bank robbers and embezzlers. Maybe something in a nice versatile Kevlar."

"That's true, I do want your daughter to grow up knowing us," Nancy teased him back. "Maybe start her out with some touch football, on bring your daughter to work day."

Ned laughed, then. "He'll be receiving mysterious messages by the time he's three, discovering secret passages left and right."

"She will," Nancy agreed, stroking her fingers down his cheek. "Ned, I love you so much."

He smiled, and swept her up into his arms, pulling her close. "I love you too."

--

The day before classes started Nancy and Ned arranged and rearranged the room she would have on campus, and when it was late and the sun was falling Nancy just kept kissing him, not wanting to let him go. He promised he would call her as soon as he made it to Emerson, that he would make sure she was all right, and after one last kiss they loosed their fingers and she watched him drive away, brushing a few tears from her cheek. She took a shower and twisted her hair up into a ponytail and headed across campus to the newsroom.

"Have a good time in Spain?" Jackie asked, shooting her a grin.

"Fantastic," Nancy returned. "Anything happen while I was away?"

Jackie laughed. "What didn't," she returned.

Some hair colors and advisors were different, and now Jackie was in Jake's old office, but not much else had changed. Nancy killed a few hours and some of her Ned-homesickness reading back issues of the paper and catching up with the newer reporters, already coming in to work on their first stories. She looked over her schedule, planning her day, looking at the subjects her child would be listening to for fifteen hours a week.

Jackie walked by when Nancy was pushing her hair behind her ear, and stopped, staring at her left hand. "Wow. Okay, you're going to dinner with me, cause Spain must have been incredibly romantic and I want to hear all about it."

"It was romantic," Nancy agreed.

Ned had given her new music, and she lay in her bed that night with the earphones on, waiting for the workout their child would probably go through. When he called her she stayed on the phone with him until she could barely keep her eyes open, her heart skipping beats at the sound of his low laughter, their child moving beneath her flesh.

"I have to sleep," she whispered.

"I have to, too," he said. "You in bed already?"

"Yeah," she murmured drowsily. "I miss you."

"I miss you too," he said. "You think maybe I could talk you into a date this weekend?"

She laughed, soft and low. "Maybe," she returned, teasing. "I'll see if I can pencil you in."

--

Her energy was back. She wasn't sick in the mornings anymore, didn't loathe the sight of food, didn't pant with exertion once she reached her assigned classrooms. Her lunchtime coincided with George's, her dinnertime with Bess's, and she called Ned every night, letting the sound of his voice lull her to the same sense of peace she'd felt during the brief time between their wedding and the beginning of the semester.

Nancy paused, notebook in hand, once the class was filing out, in front of the board. Her teacher looked up. "Miss Drew?"

Nancy nodded. "I just wanted to let you know," she said. "I'm pregnant, and my due date's right around the same time as your exam..."

Her teacher nodded. "Keep me informed," she said. "It's fine, if you need to take the exam a few days early, just in case."

"Thanks," Nancy said, and walked out. So strange, to think that by the end of the class she would have a child. It just didn't quite seem real yet. Not after the unreality of the months she'd spent in Spain, telling herself that she didn't miss him, that there was life after him. Now she wanted no other life. Now Spain was a dream and he was hers, and she would never take his ring off again. The third time was the charm.

She smiled, and began the laborious trek back to her room.

--

No one on campus, save Bess and George, knew specifically when Nancy had been married. When she announced her due date, most everyone thought she had been married in the summer, before she had left for Spain, and she was content to let them think so.

Her fellow reporters threw her a baby shower one Friday afternoon, but since most of them were undergraduates like herself, she found herself in possession of a multitude of gift cards. Gift cards and stuffed animals bearing Wilder t-shirts from the campus bookstore, though the faculty advisor had provided a cake and a gift sufficient to provide Nancy and Ned with the cradle of their choosing.

"You guys are great," Nancy said, her eyes shining.

Jackie smiled. "You're not going to let having a baby stop you from being a great reporter," she replied. "You'd better not. I'll come find you myself."

"I won't," Nancy assured her. "Ned suggested a Kevlar baby sling."

"Hmm," the advisor said. "I didn't see one of those while I was looking through the catalogs, but maybe next season."

"You're going to bring the baby to the office sometime, right? Let us see?"

Nancy nodded. "I'll bring her up sometime. I might take a little time off, but I won't forget you guys."

"You're having a girl?" one of the other students gasped happily.

"I think she's a girl," Nancy said, letting her palm rest on her stomach. "Ned thinks he's having a son. We don't know for sure yet."

"When will you know?"

"When she—or he—gets here," Nancy replied, smiling.

--

The following Monday, roses were waiting at Nancy's desk when she came to work. "You are so lucky," one of the girls said, passing by.

Nancy sat down and just gazed at them for a long moment, then reached between the leaves and plucked out the card. Ned was in his last English class, and over the weekend she had lay on the couch with her head in his lap, listening drowsily as he read Keats and Shelley aloud to her. The card held a long Keats quote, written in Ned's hand. He had always protested that he was no good with words, poetry, or expressing the depth of what he felt for her, but while she loved Keats, she would much have preferred him.

She flipped over the card and he had written "I love you" over and over, the letters reaching every edge, filling all the space. She smiled.

"I wonder why only eleven," she mused aloud.

--

On Friday he was waiting, parked at her room, and when she walked up to her door Ned climbed out of his car and approached her, walking so fast he was almost jogging.

"Ned, hey," she said, reaching for him. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I know, I tried to call you," he said. "Kept getting your voicemail."

"I was in class," she explained, searching his eyes. "Something wrong?"

"Yeah, I need you to come with me right now," he said. "If there's nothing else, nothing you can't get out of."

She shook her head slowly. "I'm free," she said.

"Good." He took her arm. "Now."

"Ned," she said, but he waited until they were in the car, and just sat there, staring down at the wheel, not starting the engine. "What is it?"

"My agent called," he said.

--

They didn't talk about it, not the entire ride back to their place. She listened to the radio and slowly became aware that her heart was pounding more firmly in her chest. The way he had said it, the haste in his manner, his insistence.

Even so, when they arrived, he kissed her, while they still stood in the living room, the apartment chill and empty without them, the door locked against everything and everyone else. Without even bothering to shrug out of her coat she reached up and returned his kiss. If only he didn't say it, it wouldn't be real, it wouldn't be true, the slow terrible certainty she couldn't dispel. Maybe it wouldn't be terrible. But she had wanted for so long to have him, to have him all to herself.

She realized then that he had never wanted anything else, and for far longer than she.

By slow degrees they moved together, until she was braced against the back of the couch. When he pressed kisses down her neck she opened her mouth, but her breath came soundless, vibrating under his lips. She wanted to know, but she had missed him. She missed every second they didn't spend this way. His mouth found hers again, claimed her. They hadn't even bothered turning on the light. She kicked her shoes off into blue shadow and pressed herself up on the back of the couch, wrapped her legs around his waist, her socks still on her feet. He unzipped her coat and she shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the couch behind her, blue eyes staring up into his, searching his. Another silent moment and she reached up to unzip his coat, eyes closing briefly as he kicked his shoes off and their joined hips shifted. She put her arms around his neck and he carried her up the stairs, his pulse jumping with every soft kiss she planted along the line of his jaw.

After, once they were settled together in their bed, she rested against him and was waiting for her heart to slow when the baby kicked, and Ned was so close to her that he gasped in surprised laughter, feeling the pressure against his own skin.

"Okay?"

She nodded and ran her fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his face. "We're fine," she said. Then she studied his eyes. "Is that why the eleven roses?"

He shook his head. "Twelve," he said. "Did they mess up the order?"

"I guess," she replied. "They were beautiful, anyway."

"And they weren't... because of this," he said, shrugging gently. "Just because." He smiled and she leaned forward to kiss him again, to feel his heart beating between them.

"Ned, what's wrong," she whispered against his lips.

"Not wrong," he shook his head. "Not necessarily wrong." He traced kisses over her cheek, against her neck. "I have another offer."

"How long is this one," Nancy replied, closing her eyes, draping her arm over his shoulders, making softly pleased noises between kisses.

"Another year."

"And you're thinking about it," she said.

He was quiet for so long that she opened her eyes again, gazing at the soft brush of lashes over his cheek in the fading winter sunlight, the shadow of her hand as it cupped his cheek. "I'm not thinking about it yet," he said. "Not unless, not until you say it's even on the table."

"How long have you known."

"For a while," he admitted. He brushed a kiss over the base of her throat, his voice soft against her skin. "They didn't start pushing it until yesterday. Didn't start pushing for an answer. Apparently I'm strange, I didn't jump at it immediately."

"Have you had my dad look over it yet?"

He shook his head. "Not until you say so," he replied. Then he kissed her hungrily and pulled her into his embrace and she didn't think, didn't feel anything other than them, the two of them, entwined and breathless, she lost herself in it until they lay silent again in a last drowsy caress. She put her head on his shoulder, his hand tracing over the small of her back in smooth circles.

"What do you want," she asked him finally.

"You," he replied, and she smiled even though the sound of it made tears swell in her eyes. "Just you."

--

They were together the entire weekend. He didn't ask her for an answer, but they held each other as they slept, and on Sunday when she was clearing their lunch from the table she stopped suddenly and put her hand on his shoulder. He gazed up at her and she smiled.

"You're beautiful," she whispered. "And I love you."

"Love you too," he said, his voice soft with wonder, and he drew her face down to his for a kiss.

They wasted time. Time was no waste, not with him, but she didn't want to go back, she didn't want to be without him. When he could wait no longer, he took her back to school, but followed her wordlessly into her room and they lay together in her narrow bed, in the dark, holding each other.

"I don't even know what it's like to be here when you're playing," she admitted. "I don't know how long you're away, how exhausted you are, the practices, the traveling..."

He nodded. "It's a lot," he told her, and pushed back her hair, searching her face. "I won't lie to you. I trained like the devil, but... I needed to take my mind off things," he admitted, giving her a half-smile. "Training and practice and games and after-parties. But you'll be here." He traced his fingers over her cheek. "My wife."

Her heart swelled as she heard him speak the words, and she leaned forward to kiss him. When she pulled back she let her forehead rest against his, gazing at him.

"I want my husband," she whispered. "I want you to be there for all the late night feedings and diaper changings and first steps, first words. I want you."

He nodded. "I'll tell them in the morning."

She laughed softly, then, and he leaned into her, brushing his lips over hers, gentle and soft. "Is it one or the other?" she whispered.

"Not everything," he told her. "But if this is..."

"When would you be going away," she whispered.

"Summer camps is when it starts," he said. "Like... like before."

Like last summer, the cabins on the edge of the water, the nights spent in his arms, their child. She pressed her face against his chest.

"Give me a week," she told him. "Just a week. Hold them off and show it to my dad and we can talk about this. But I need time."

He nodded. Then he closed his eyes, his fingers still tracing gently down her cheek, their legs tangled.

"Ned?" she asked, waiting to see those brown eyes again. "Ned, it's okay."

His lashes fluttered up again but he shrugged, so faint anyone else would have missed it. "I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"For asking you to even think about this," he said. "I never thought we'd have to make this choice again."

"Yeah, well," she said, smiling. "You happen to be a great football player. It's not like I didn't know that. And I'm proud of you."

He returned her smile. "You have no idea how much it means to me, to hear you say that," he said softly.

--

"I don't know about your idea anymore," Nancy told George. The two of them were waiting for Bess. George shifted her backpack to relieve the weight on her shoulders, then raised an eyebrow.

"That doesn't sound good," George said. "The one about becoming a professional tennis instructor?"

"No, that one's still good," Nancy laughed. "The one about me and Ned getting a pool table."

"Pool table, air hockey table, pinball machine," George shrugged. "Why?"

Nancy looked away for a minute. "Ned's been offered another contract."

"And he's going to take it?"

"He asked me first," Nancy said. "Before he decides anything."

"But that's great," George said. "Isn't it?"

Nancy shrugged. "I don't know," she admitted. "I can tell that he really wants it. And... I guess I just don't want him to be away, all that time."

George opened her mouth, then closed it again.

"What," Nancy demanded.

"Do you know how much... I mean, say it with me. 'I'm married to an NFL player.' It's easy, come on..."

Nancy repeated the words. "And I'm actually thinking about telling him not to be one."

George's glance was sympathetic. "It's a hard choice," she said. "Maybe Bess'll have an idea."

--

Bess had no idea. Nancy had no idea. Her father produced his stamp of approval and they went to the doctor together in the middle of the week, but Ned only volunteered the information, didn't press her for any conclusions. After Nancy and their child were pronounced fit, Ned walked her out to her car, their arms linked together.

She leaned against the driver's side door of her Mustang and gazed up at him. "You know I love you."

"I'm pretty sure of it." A smile flirted with his lips.

She reached up and pulled him down to her for a kiss, and when he pulled back her lips were red and swelled from the press of his, the color high in her cheeks, and he loved that expression, the faint vulnerability and longing in her eyes. She brushed a hand through her hair and smiled softly, then gazed back at him.

"I will let you know," she said firmly, her eyebrows raised to soften the remark. "I'm not trying to be difficult about this."

"It's hard," he agreed, and leaned forward to pull her into his arms, to rest his chin on the crown of her head. "I only want you to be happy."

She smiled, lingering, then pushed him back, her wool mittens soft against his coat. "Go," she said. "I'll see you this weekend."

"You'd better," he said softly, but smiled.

--

On Friday of that week Nancy walked back into the office at the newspaper, her desk just as she had left it. With a very minor difference, though. Nancy pulled the post-it note off her computer monitor. Jackie wanted to see her when she had a minute.

"Okay," Nancy mumbled, then pulled back her chair and settled into it, reaching for her phone. Ned picked up on the third ring.

"Hey."

"Hey." Nancy sighed. "Let's go out tonight. Wherever you want."

"For dinner?"

"For dinner," she agreed. "And we can talk."

"You've made up your mind?"

"I think so," she told him. "Almost."

"Danny'll be relieved," Ned said, and Nancy couldn't stop herself from laughing. "He's a little bit impatient, and he's been begging for permission to call and help you along."

"Good thing you didn't give it," she teased Ned back.

"Yeah, well," Ned said, and she could almost see him shrugging. "This is between us before it's about anyone else."

"I love you," she breathed then. "I have to go, Jackie wants to see me, but I'll see you tonight."

"Wear the blue silk dress," Ned said. "Because if it's a no, at least then I might be too busy staring at you to hear it."

"Blue silk," she agreed.

"Love you too."

Nancy hung up the phone and took a deep breath, then dusted her palms on her thighs and walked into Jackie's office. Jackie already had someone seated in front of her desk, a guy with thick, nearly black hair, wire-rimmed glasses.

"Oh, there you are," Jackie said, her eyes sparkling with laughter. "Nan—Nancy, this is your new assistant."

"Assistant?" Nancy chimed in. "Since when?"

"Since today," Jackie said. "Matt just wants to be shown the ropes. He transferred from Emerson, he's been here over the summer, and he's not half bad, if I say so myself. And, in your condition..."

"Right," Nancy said, drawling the word in disbelief. "Well, if you're from Emerson..."

"I promise I won't get in the way," the man said, and he turned, gazing up at her. He climbed to his feet. "I've been doing some copyediting, but I just wanted to see what it'd be like to be a reporter." He stuck out his hand. "Matt Carter."

Nancy darted one glance at Jackie before reaching out for Matt's hand.

"Pleased to meet you," she said.


End file.
